


It's a Life

by xzombiexkittenx



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, character death (not Sam or Dean)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2018-04-14 14:12:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4567536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xzombiexkittenx/pseuds/xzombiexkittenx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchester version of "It's a Wonderful Life" (the cheesy Christmas film)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he? - It's a Wonderful Life

* ~ * ~ *

**Now**

Right before Christmas 2007, the Winchester brothers kidnapped, tortured and killed three random strangers in an elderly couple’s home before bizarrely staking the elderly couple with bits of a Christmas tree. In a bowl on the table, forensics found blood from both brothers and one of Samuel Winchester’s fingernails.

It’s a little weird, but Henriksen has been tracking the Winchesters for two years. It’s not even close to the craziest thing they’ve done on Christmas. And he knows, blood to balls to bones that Dean Winchester is a monster. A little weirdness is nothing. 

* ~ * ~ *

**Then, December 2007: 142**

Dean turned the Impala south, the day after Christmas which makes Sam nervous. It feels like they’re closer to the Feds than they were before, not that that makes a lot of sense since, you know, Federal, but everything makes Sam nervous these days. They can’t go to jail, not now, they don’t have time. Sam’s scar itches every time he thinks about it, which has got to be psychosomatic but is also kind of annoying.

They have a lead on a demon. Half-signs and a newspaper article. It’s enough for Dean, enough for Sam too, who’s chasing his tail with those bastards these days.

The air feels cold enough to choke on outside, but all of the Impala’s windows are down and Dean is just far enough over the speed limit that the air rushing by seems almost hot it’s so cold. Sam’s hair stings his eyes and Dean has the music turned up so loud that Sam thinks that if there was anyone within a hundred miles they would be able to hear the only Tom Cochrane song that Dean has.

Everything is muted between the lead gray skies and the muddy snow. Sam feels dulled down, overpowered by the cold and the noise and the bright light reflecting from the snow. His scar itches constantly, no matter how he sits. He can’t do anything other than huddle into the seat and join in the chorus, mumbling his way through the lyrics while Dean belts them out, only slightly out of tune. Dean’s been enjoying the hell out of his tape collection, listening to them louder than usual and Sam doesn’t have the heart to tell him to turn them down. Sam knows the words, he has to know the words, he’s heard the damn song a thousand times, but whatever they are are pushed back by the chant he has in his head that says, “I have to save Dean,” so he only manages to catch “life is a highway” before he forgets what comes next. 

“Dude,” Dean says, almost shouting so that he can be heard. “You should play this at my--” His teeth clamp shut before he can say anything else and Sam pretends he didn’t hear Dean over Tom belting out “Just tell ‘em we’re survivors” and pretends he doesn’t want to cry. He stares at the road ahead of them and counts breaks in the painted lines until enough time has passed that Dean starts singing again.

* ~ * ~ *

**139**

The lead turns out to definitely be a possession, but it’s a spirit, not demonic. Sam is disappointed. He thinks if maybe they kill enough demons, he can bargain with them, tell them he’ll stop if they let Dean go.

Dean is way too excited. Spirit possessions aren’t common and Sam suspects Dean’s enthusiasm is because hunters who’ve seen weird shit that other hunters haven’t get serious bragging rights. With Ellen rebuilding the Roadhouse, there’s going to be a place to do it, but Sam doesn’t want to go anywhere near other hunters. Not with his soul in question, and Dean’s damned, and both willing to do worse. They look too much like prey right now.

The bedroom they do the ritual in is floral, of all the hideous things and it looks more like it would belong to this woman’s grandmother than something a twenty-odd girl would own. Sam examines a figurine on the dresser. It’s a simpering shepherdess and, come on, who owns this stuff other than someone’s grandma? He says so to Dean and is rewarded with one of Dean’s genuine laughs. He thinks idly that he’s not very good at making Dean happy, which is a little weird since he’s pretty sure that he’s the only thing Dean wants.

Dean splashes holy water on the woman, just to be sure. She’s brunette, pretty face contorted with rage. “Fear the priest,” Dean says, grinning, “Merrin, Merrin.” Steam pours off the girl where the holy water touched her, but it’s thinner, not like with demons, and there’s no sulfur smell. Dean flips open John’s journal, his finger already wedged in the right page. Sam is fairly certain Dean has all the incantations memorized, but he never does anything without the book, chokes without it. John’s shadow, still crippling his son. The cute one, the troublemaker. Sam was the smart one. Dean has no reason to believe he could learn the rituals. He doesn’t think he can.

“That’s would make you Pazuzu, and this isn’t a demon,” Sam corrects, as Dean starts chanting. There’s nothing for Sam to do. He leans against the wall and watches his brother work, enjoying the smooth roll of Dean’s Latin. Dean flips him the bird, and pulls the ghost out of the woman. They’ve already salted and burned the damn thing’s bones and without a host it vanishes with a shriek. 

They untie the girl – Sam can’t even remember her name – and she starts weeping and falls into Dean’s arms. Dean never knows what to do with this sort of thing and tries to hand her to Sam, but Sam steps back, lets the woman cry out her gratitude, clutching at Dean’s jacket. So few people show their appreciation to Dean these days that Sam thinks he should feel it, even if it’s just weeping and clutching.

She tries to make them coffee in a kitchen that looks like it hasn’t been refitted since the sixties but her hands shake too much, so Dean does it for her; spikes it with a shot of whatever’s in his flask. Probably a combination of holy water and something strong enough to strip paint. There’s no way the woman can’t tell, but she smiles, weak and watery at him and Dean does a sort of self-deprecating shrug and smile. He tells her to get some sleep, that the ghost is gone and she’s safe. The woman starts to cry again, this time in relief. Sam thinks about how much Dean has been drinking recently and how much John used to drink when the mood hit him wrong and wonders how much Dean will put up a fuss if he mentions it.

Dean punches Sam in the arm when they finally get away. “Damn it,” he says. “You’re better at that shit than me.”

Sam thinks back a few hours to digging up the corpse they needed to salt and burn; boring, sweaty work, and picks at the calluses on his hands. He let Dean drop the match, which seemed to be the highlight of his brother’s evening, apart from actually finding a spirit possession. They’ve started burying the ashes of the torched bones. The soil is all turned and it’s clear that the grave’s been dug up, but Dean insists it’s the best way of covering their tracks and, he says, it’s desecration otherwise. This way it’s not so hard on everyone else.

Sam is so tired of everyone else.

* ~ * ~ *

**Present Day**

**Newark, Delaware – December 24 2008**

Sam hates Christmas, he always has, but he’d hoped that this year might be different. They’ve had so many shitty years that he thinks maybe they’re owed two good days. Sam wants to take Dean to New York, stay in a nice hotel, skate on Rockefeller Center, and watch Dean fall on his ass. As the FBI's favourite crime couple, duo, whatever, they can’t just check in to the Ritz, and they’re trying to use fewer credit cards and more cash to avoid detection. This means that Dean is hustling a lot of pool and Sam a lot of poker, neither of which really pays the bills. 

For all of Dean’s ideas, they didn’t gamble the money Bella gave them, over a year ago. Sam’s pretty sure Bobby has it, keeping it safe. For after Dean’s final hurrah. It makes him want to hit Dean. It doesn’t matter that the deadline is gone. Doesn’t matter that Sam’s buried the crossroad demon and got the contract away from her bastard of a boss for good. Dean’s safe. Apparently that doesn’t mean dick to his brother who still can’t believe Sam won that round. 

There won’t even be any snow. It’s been nothing but freezing rain for two days, making the ground slick and icy and dangerous to walk on and worse to dive over. Between them, they have about a hundred dollars, less now that Dean’s bought dinner and enough liquor to drown himself in.

It’s too cold to sleep in the car. It’s too cold to sleep anywhere without heating but they need what’s left of the hundred so they’re squatting again. Sam doesn’t bring up Bella’s money because he’s tried that before and he’s way too cold and tired to argue about it again. The house is run-down; boarded up windows, broken glass, and dirt, and dust on the floor, graffiti, and a few needles. The rain gets in in some rooms. The wind gets in in all of them. 

Dean broke up what was left of the furniture in the house and dragged in some branches from outside. There’s no fireplace, but there’s no fire alarm either and Dean went out with the shovel and came back with wet dirt and dumped it on the wooden floor so he wouldn’t burn the house down when he made a fire right on top of the bare boards. There’s a lot of smoke and not as much heat as Sam would like but they’re in the one room that isn’t made of broken windows and it’s the best they’re going to get. It’s worse than when John was alive. Much worse.

Sam doesn’t know where Dean stole the crappy, molting plastic tree that’s sitting in the corner from or what possessed him to use ugly women’s earrings as baubles. It’s not cheerful. 

“It wasn’t the money,” Dean says, looking up from unrolling his sleeping bag on top of the decrepit mattress he’s dragged down from upstairs.

Sam, hunched up close to the fire in as many layers as he could comfortably put on, shrugs. “It’s okay, Dean.”

“I could have got it, Sammy. You know I could have.” Dean’s face is limned in flickering red and he looks tired and worn. His hands are holding on too tight to the sleeping bag, clenched in the worn fabric.

Sam knows what ‘Sammy’ means there. It means “little brother” and it means “I’d do anything to keep you safe/happy/whateveryouwant.” It means “I’m sorry.” It means “I’m a fuck up but forgive me.” It means “Don’t leave me.”

Sam looks away and Dean sighs unhappily. “The motel,” he says, and stops. Sam can hear Dean rubbing his hands over his face. “The motel had our pictures next to the desk. I couldn’t risk us getting busted.”

Sam looks at his brother again, and Dean is unrolling Sam’s sleeping bag for him, unzipping them both so Dean’s becomes the bottom sheet and Sam’s the top. It’ll be warmer that way. For a man so good at getting himself killed, Dean’s a skilled survivalist. He moves without thought, routine, as he gets up and, content that they’re not going anywhere else and won’t freeze to death where they are, draws a thick, thick line of salt around the edges of the room.

“It’s okay,” Sam says again. He thinks about inhuman powers that could make the trouble with the FBI vanish. He thinks about blood and broken bones and Dean’s last days. It’s not even close to okay.

Dean sits down on the ratty mattress and cracks open a bottle of Jack. He hasn’t eaten anything since lunch and there’s sandwiches waiting, but he doesn’t seem interested. Sam’s not surprised, with the way things are, he’s half tempted to just start drinking too, but he’d have to talk to Dean then, and he just can’t bear to. 

Things are completely out of control. Dean’s a disaster, Sam’s killed enough people that he’s beginning to wonder if it’s a problem that he doesn’t care and demons are still freaking everywhere and they keep hanging around, hinting at things. Getting Dean out of his deal was only the beginning. Demons are letting other demons out and the war is revving up. Something’s got to break soon and Sam’s starting to think he’s the Anti-Christ. Which doesn’t make any sense if you factor in all the other generations of Azazel’s children, but there you have it. Demons don’t tend to make a lot of sense.

Sam’s waiting for Dean to ask him how many have died. To try and stop him. And the more Sam kills the more he thinks he’d let the whole world burn so long as he and his brother walk out together. It’s not normal, he knows that, but it’s his turn, isn’t it? It’s what he was born and bred by two men to do. He should be a demon general. He should fight for family. He should die for family. Or maybe that last one was just Dean’s job. Either way. 

* ~ * ~ *

Henriksen knows Dean’s crimes by heart: fraud, theft and credit card scams. He knows about unpaid speeding tickets. He knows Dean’s crimes in all their great and varied details. Illegal gambling, impersonating officers of the law, breaking and entering, grievous bodily harm, assault and battery. He knows the name of every body that Dean has been fingered for digging up (and salting, and burning, and Jesus Christ, what a signature mark that is). He knows the names of the men Dean has shot.

Henriksen knows the lives of the women that Dean has tortured and killed, probably better even than Dean does. He knows their names and their families, what their aspirations were, what Dean has taken from the world.

* ~ * ~ *

**Then, Jan 2008: 134**

Somewhere on route 22, in a crappy motel with a ugly 40’s décor that smells like it hasn’t been changed since then, Sam discovers that Dean has a journal; a nice, well bound, black leather journal, and Sam can’t manage to get his hands on the damn thing. He sees Dean tuck it under a newspaper when Sam comes in from a pizza run and it’s gone when he gets a chance to look again.

Every time he thinks he’s figured out where Dean keeps it, it’s not there. It’s not in the duffels, the glove box, the trunk, the secret compartment of the trunk, the drawers in the motel and it doesn’t look like the lines of Dean’s jeans are being broken by anything but his gun so he hasn’t stuck it in his pocket. Not that it would fit. Sam thinks he has to be moving it periodically, but he can’t catch Dean at it. The only reason he knows Dean has the journal is because he’s seen it a grand total of three times.

Sam isn’t very good at not knowing things, especially about Dean because it seems to him that every time Dean hides something from him, it always ends badly. They’re in a burger joint off the highway, most of the way through dinner when he asks, “What do you write about?” The corner of the table is peeling up, the cheep veneer coming away from the dented metal. It looks like there’s mold of some kind underneath the Formica and all the waitresses are over fifty. It’s not one of the nicer places they’ve eaten at, but it’s by no means the worst. The food at least isn’t rotten. Sam wishes that they had the money to eat in nice restaurants, especially now, but Dean doesn’t seem to mind and they’re far too wanted to show their faces to the general public.

“What?” Dean looks up from his French – freedom, in this hole in the wall – fries and stares at Sam across the diner table. His fingers are covered in ketchup and he talks around his last mouthful of burger. Sam doesn’t even blink at Dean’s table manners these days. It’s too late to teach Dean differently and God knows their father never bothered. John’s military Yessiring only extended as far as the hunt, not so far as actually teaching Dean anything useful, like table manners. His last bite probably could have been at least three bites. It’s kind of disgusting, even if Sam is used to it.

“In the journal,” Sam says and spins his spoon around on the table in irritated and irritating little circles. 

“Monsters,” Dean says, unconcerned, like he hasn’t been hiding it. He sucks the ketchup off his fingers, one by one. “Me. I don’t know. Stupid shit.”

Sam stares out the window at the parking lot filled with trucks, the Impala hiding somewhere behind the eighteen wheelers and shifts in his seat. “Can I read it?”

Dean shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says instead of “no” and Sam knows that the Winchesters don’t leave much behind them. Their father left his journal and now Dean’s writing his own. Sam’s mouth thins out, but he doesn’t say anything else.

He finds it in Dean’s jacket that night when Dean is sleeping. _Dear ~~Sammy~~ Sam,_ it starts. And Sam reads the whole thing while Dean snores. It’s different than what their father left, more memories scrawled out in Dean’s childish handwriting. It’s conversational. _Hey, remember that time in Mentone, Alabama? With the haystack and the little boy ghost with the shotgun?_

It’s everything Dean remembers, none of it in any sort of order. Sam would have described their childhood as an endless purgatory of motel rooms and leaving schools and friends behind but Dean remembers everyone. The people they helped, the schoolgirls, and the waitresses he fucked, the monsters they were chasing and if Sam or John was injured, how the Impala was running. There is only one thing missing from the narrative of Dean’s life, and that’s Dean. 

There’s useful information that Dean has figured out; exactly how to run credit card scams, how much money to put down when hustling pool, how to break into more modern cars, information about the Impala and how Sam should look after her, doctors that will help for a little under the table cash. Everything Sam might need to survive alone. Everything except Dean.

Sam has spent enough time with his brother to know better though. And while Dean doesn’t say, “we were here and I thought this and felt that,” Sam’s not a total idiot and he’s had enough schooling to know what subtext means and how to read between the lines of Dean’s confessions. It’s pretty sad that Dean’s life is being the man-in-the-middle Winchester, finding the thing that killed their mom, looking after Sam, and saving other people, and that’s it. Two of those four things are done and he may as well have just drawn a line though them, like it was a To Do list. There’s no desperation in the subtext, just a desire to make sure Sam knows everything, anything that might be important when Dean can’t tell him. Dean isn’t sorry and he doesn’t regret the ruin of his own life, and Sam wants to strangle him.

He tucks the journal back into Dean’s jacket. They have a lead on a demon, somewhere they have to be tomorrow and Dean will write more in that stupid book and think any of that shit matters to Sam. 

Sam doesn’t care about any of it. He’ll keep helping people because it’s the right thing to do and he’ll keep doing it until something stops him, but he has to now, he’s in up to his eyeballs. Sam doesn’t care what their names are, or what their story is. He just wants their pain out of his head. But he’s known he’s selfish for a long time, and he doesn’t care any more. Maybe that’s what the demon meant by not quite right. Maybe being dead took his compassion. He’s not sure and he doesn’t care.

Sam can’t sleep but he has shit to do anyway so he turns on the laptop. He’s read Faustus and Theophilus and he’s seen the Devil’s Advocate and he knows that short of a miracle from the Virgin Mary he’s unlikely to find answers to any of their problems on the internet. Fat lot of good Ruby’s been, too. He keeps waiting for her, letting her string him along like an idiot, just waiting for her next scrap of “I can help you save Dean.” 

Sam wonders if he’s not going about it the wrong way, if trying to break the pact isn’t going to be like banging his head against a brick wall. He thinks he has two options. Become the Sam that Azazel wanted and stop the crossroad demon by being faster and stronger and better, or through a loophole. Sam finds a few bits of paper and uses his telekinesis to take notes while he starts to outline everything Dean’s told him, everything he knows about deals with devils and an opening statement. 

Some time, around four in the morning, Sam has a nightmare, just a stupid, normal nightmare and they wake up to all the glass in the room shattering.

* ~ * ~ *

**Present Day**

Sam smiles sourly and gets up from his spot at the fire. He thinks Azazel and John couldn’t really complain about how things have turned out, were they to take one another into account. There’s just no taking Dean into account. Dean, who has been brother, and father, and mother, and friend, and every other fucking thing that Sam couldn’t get any way else. He sits next to Dean, chameleon Dean with a thousand false identities for everyone else and who can’t lie for shit to his brother. Dean holds out the whiskey and Sam accepts. 

“You gonna stay up with me and wait for Santa?” Dean asks with a grin as Sam chokes on the harsh burn. He can hold his drink just fine, thank you, but it doesn’t mean he likes doing straight shots. Not like Dean whose throat works in swallows, lips around the mouth of the bottle. He drinks like he’ll drown.

“Santa’s not coming,” Sam says, and waits for Dean’s querying look before he takes the bottle from his brother. “He doesn’t come to the naughty girls and boys.”

Dean laughs even though it wasn’t funny. “I’m a freaking saint,” he says.

There’s a package in Dean’s duffle, one not from the seven eleven down the road, actually gift wrapped, and addressed to Sam. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine that Sam is supposed to wake up and find it tomorrow morning and that Dean doesn’t know Sam found it a week ago, looking for a clean pair of socks. He almost peeked, but managed to reign in his inner five-year-old. Saint Dean. Patron saint of Sam Winchester.

Sam bumps his shoulder against Dean’s and takes the Jack back. 

By the time it’s dark outside and their only light is from the smoky fire, Dean is drunk. “Sammy?” he asks. “Do you remember that time in Minnesota?”

“No,” Sam says automatically.

“You know, that was the Christmas with Dad and Pastor Jim. You were ten. Remember?”

Sam remembers. They’d had a real tree and fourteen year old Dean had shoveled snow for weeks up and down the neighborhoods, saving. He’d bought John something eminently forgettable and practical and he’d bought Sam a real, leather-bound journal; not like John’s, more like a book with blank pages. On the first page he’d written, carefully, neatly, “The Adventures of Samuel Winchester Boy Wonder.” Sam had filled it up with his ten-year-old imaginings and doodles and whatever popped into his head. He’d torn it up and thrown it out at sixteen in a fit of pique when he was mad at Dean. He remembers being angry that Christmas that he couldn’t be with his friends over the holiday, that they were moving again. He remembers Dean sneaking a few of the beers that John and Jim were drinking and not ratting him out. He remembers a snow fort that he and Dean built and how they fought snowball wars with each other and Jim, and once, their father.

“No,” Sam says again, not wanting to reminisce. “Why?”

Dean sighs and flops back onto his back. “That was a good year,” he says. 

Sam remembers the rest of the year. They’d moved four times, John had been on the road almost constantly, since Dean was old enough to hold the fort down on his own. Sam, at ten, was miles behind Dean and trying desperately to keep up. He thinks now he might have held Dean back. Sam was bullied at one school and ignored at the other three except by the weird kid and he loved it anyway. He missed every single one of his strange friends. He hated training already. He was ten years old and miserable. He remembers Dean stumbling awkwardly through puberty. Not physically, John’s training and good looks got him over that hurdle, but he was always the new kid, same as Sam. Dean stopped making friends around that time, tired of missing them, suddenly interested in girls, busy looking after Sam who needed a lot of looking after. He skipped a lot of school. He learned to cook because Sam was a picky eater that year.

Sam abruptly feels guilty. “You think?” he asks and is rewarded with a drunk, lopsided smile.

“Sure,” Dean says.

* ~ * ~ *

Henriksen knows that Dean Winchester drives the car, commits the murders, and mouths off to the Feds when he’s brought in. He’s brute force, and charm, and psychosis.


	2. Chapter 2

**Then, January 2008: 127**

Dean’s been playing the same Doors tape all day. All. Freaking. Day. He doesn’t drum his fingers on the wheel, he isn’t enjoying himself and he won’t talk to Sam either. He just keeps turning that damn tape over and over and his mouth is pressed in a horrible, grim line. Sam doesn’t like the Doors; Dean doesn’t like the Doors all that much either, but the tape’s in the box and sometimes, apparently, it’s a Doors day. 

The set of Dean’s shoulders says he’s a spider’s thread away from cracking and Sam has tried to talk to him, but Dean’s shoulders tighten and Sam thinks maybe Dean might crash the Impala if he pushes it right now. They’ve been driving for eighteen hours. Four rest stops – bathroom break, jumbo soda, fast food – and Dean has barely spoken two words.

They stop for the fifth time and Sam walks a few buildings down and books a room for the night at the motel that’s pretending valiantly to be a Super 8 while Dean is filling up the tank. Dean just presses his mouth into an even thinner line, parks the Impala and follows Sam into the room.

Sam locks the door behind them and watches as Dean circles the room in salt, chalks wards onto the door and window frames, draws protective circles on the floor, under the beds. Dean’s hands shake and he’s unsteady on his feet when he gets up from the floor. He doesn’t ask for Sam’s help, or why he’s still standing in the doorway, just, “Dude, quit staring.”

Sam takes off his sneakers, strips down to his boxers and goes and has a shower. He finishes and gets out without turning off the water, quietly drying himself off. He cracks open the door and presses his eye to the gap, feeling like an idiot, but Dean won’t talk and Sam has to know.

Dean is sitting on the bed nearest the door, propped up against the headboard, still wearing his coat even though the room is too hot, boots muddying the blanket. He isn’t doing anything. He looks like he’s sleeping but he opens his eyes when Sam comes into the room.

“There a reason the shower’s still on?” Dean asks. He needs to shave and his eyes are puffy and swollen from lack of sleep. He looks terrible. Sam wants to beg him to talk, to say something that means something, and Dean has always given in to his every demand but Dean looks fragile so Sam punches him instead.

They fight until Sam loses his towel and Dean laughs, thin and brittle, as Sam scowls and covers himself again. Dean lies down and goes to sleep as Sam turns the water off, brushes his teeth and turns out the light. His brother is still wearing his boots and his coat and it’s a gun under his pillow, Sam thinks, not a knife. He doesn’t think about how he knows that.

Sam tries to take the boots off his brother but Dean wakes up with a start. When he sees Sam kneeling on the dirty carpet he takes his own boots off, then strips down to his boxers, grudgingly, like he’s only doing it for Sam and goes back to sleep, hand tucked under his pillow. Sam hopes he doesn’t blow his own brains out by accident. 

He lifts the journal from Dean’s jacket and flips to the most recent entry, feeling like he’s cheating. The entry is apologies. Apologies for everything from fighting with Sam in the backseat when they were kids, to not jumping in front of every monster that ever came at them, to being such a jerk all day. Every wrong thing Dean’s ever done, and every thing he’s done he thinks is wrong. Dean’s clumsy handwriting spells out shame.

Sam crawls into the stupid narrow-ass bed with his brother. Dean grunts and kind of wakes up but he’s sleep-soft and goes with minimal complaint when Sam uses his extra inches to wrap himself around Dean, half pinning him, half squashing him. 

“No, the green ones,” Dean mumbles against Sam’s arm. “Under the pineapple.” 

Sam can’t just shake Dean awake and tell him it’s okay that their lives are stupid and messed up because it’s not Dean’s fault. But he can’t do that because that would mean admitting to having read the journal. It’s not Dean’s fault, Sam knows that. It’s a little bit Sam’s fault for having something the demons want and it’s a little bit John’s fault for being such a crappy dad and such a good sergeant. 

Dean relaxes with Sam’s arm slung over him and Sam presses a kiss to the soft bristle of his hair and prays for him. He doesn’t have any words other than, Please and Not Dean. The words “take me instead” don’t factor in because he knows now where his place is and what Dean needs to be for him to keep going. He’s glad his father is in heaven with their mom, but he kind of wants to yell at John (and he kind of wants to go back in time and yell at himself) for whatever he did to Dean to make him think he doesn’t count. Dean’s always been everything to him, and he’s not sure how that got so lost in translation. 

Sam’s head aches and aches and when he dreams he dreams of a man with black eyes whose mouth moves one way but whose real voice is screaming What’s happening to me, Oh God this can’t be real Please God don’t hurt my family.

* ~ * ~ *

**Present Day**

Dean has a serious case of whiskey dick and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. It doesn’t happen very often – not the whiskey dick, the other thing – but every time it does it makes Dean want to cut his own dick off with a rusty blade, so this time it’s good that the stupid thing is behaving itself.

Not that Dean doesn’t like having a hard on. Those are awesome. It’s the other thing, the thing he doesn’t think about. And it doesn’t happen very often, just sometimes, and only recently.

He keeps drinking, resolutely not thinking about the terrible, awful thing that, every so often, pops into his head. He forgets pretty quickly when he thinks instead about Sam’s face plastered on a wanted poster.

*~*~*~*

Henriksen also knows that Samuel Winchester is something colder. 

He thought that Sam was just along for the ride at first, pulled out of Stanford and back into the Winchester fold. Now he thinks that maybe Samuel, Sam, Sammy, is the one holding Dean’s leash. First the sins of the father, and now the sins of the little brother. Henriksen thinks maybe Sam’s the true believer. 

* ~ * ~ *

**Then, January 2008: 110**

“Dean?” he asks, because sometimes Sam can’t help it. “Do you think it was just the yellow-eyed demon that had plans for us?”

“Nah.” Dean says. “I think every son of a bitch in Hell has an agenda but they’re too freaking stupid to team up. Or something, I don’t know. Maybe they’re too selfish, want all the destruction to have their name on it. Why?” He sounds suspicious.

Sam shrugs. He’s had a migraine for three days and if he doesn’t get a vision, he thinks his head might explode. “No reason,” he says. He’s been taking codeine pills like candy. “I just worry, Dean.” 

They hit the road late, Dean driving, even though he looks tired, because he says the day Sam drives the Impala is they day they put him in the ground and it’s not funny. Not after the crash and not now. Sam calls Dean an asshole instead of telling him to shut up and it should escalate because Dean calls him a psychotic with PMS. After five minutes of bickering Sam is too tired to keep arguing and Dean looks like he’s going to run them off the road if Sam pushes any harder, so Sam snaps, “Forget the whole stupid fight.” His migraine dissipates so fast that Sam feels dizzy with it. A second later Dean is grinning at him and cranking up Metallica’s cover of Stone Cold Crazy. 

Sam says, “Pull over,” and Dean does, but Sam can’t tell if that’s because he sounds like hell, or if Sam did the Voice again. He opens the door and retches until he’s dry heaving.

Dean rubs his back like Sam is five and Sam says, “Remember the fight,” in the Voice because putting the whammy on someone is so much easier the second time, and any lingering traces of the headache are gone, like steam pressure out of a valve. Dean flinches for just a second and then keeps rubbing.

“It’s okay, Sam,” Dean says, tiredly. “It’ll help cut back on the credit card scams anyway.”

Sam thinks, desperately, that he’s supposed to be the one looking out for Dean this time.

* ~ * ~ *

**Present Day**

There’s a silence as Dean works on his bottle of Jack and Sam remembers how John used to drink. The liquor in his guts feels heavy as his stomach turns over. He takes the bottle away and puts it out of Dean’s reach.

“You want to call it a night?” Sam asks, hesitantly, because Dean’s never been a belligerent drunk, not on Jack Daniels anyway, but he gets tetchy if he thinks he’s being handled. 

Dean looks at him blearily. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says. 

And that’s why Sam hates Jack Daniels. And whiskey in general. As a general rule whiskey makes Dean a little morose, a little over-affectionate and these days there’s so much shit they’re not talking about that Sam is a little afraid of what Dean is going to come out with.

“I woulda gone down on the spot, you know that right? If that’s what it took.” Sam looks away and Dean grabs onto him, too close. He doesn’t say anything else, just breathes thick and boozy on Sam’s face. Sam hates his brother so intensely it hurts because he loves Dean completely and selfishly and utterly and he’s not sure he’s going to have that much longer if Dean keeps acting like he’s still on the death clock and keeps taking stupid risks, keeps sacrificing himself for Sam.

“Shut up, Dean,” he says. “ _God_.” Sometimes he feels fourteen years old again, frustrated and itchy in his own skin every time Dean opens his mouth. He still not sure how Dean does it.

“It’s not because Dad told me to,” Dean insists, close enough that if Sam turns his head too fast he’s either going to break Dean’s nose by accident or wind up kissing his brother. “I carried you out of that fire.” Sam doesn’t know what fire Dean’s talking about, and he supposes it doesn’t matter. “He gave you to me to look after. He didn’t have to tell me.” 

Dean’s logic sucks. Sam tells him this. 

“No,” Dean says, shaking his head so hard he’s overbalancing. “No, man, not like that.” But he can’t explain what it is like. He slurs out something about applesauce and car keys and demons but his head is drooping and he’s heavy against Sam.

Dean passes out, forehead bumping against Sam’s shoulder, still dressed.

Sam sighs and lets Dean slump down to the mattress. “You so owe me,” he says and starts undressing his brother. He gets Dean down to his boxer-briefs, rolls him onto his side so if he pukes he won’t choke to death and pokes at the fire one more time.

He changes into sweats and a wifebeater and crawls under the sleeping bag, back to back with his brother. It’s worse than when John was alive. Much worse. And he thinks Dean knows it too.

*~*~*~*

**Then, February 2008: 87**

“Take mine,” Dean says and he looks mad enough to fight off Hell on his own.

Sam’s charm, the one Bobby gave them to prevent possession, has snapped. The whole damn chain broke somewhere on the road and he doesn’t notice until it’s not there. Since Dean made his decision long ago – protect Sam at all costs – Sam figures he’s got to be the sensible one.

“Dean, no,” he says. 

“You stupid jerk,” Dean says, and he’s not shouting, even though he probably should be. “If I get possessed, then I can shoot someone, or whatever, but you can do your brain thing on whatever you come across and then what the hell are we supposed to do?” He takes his necklace off, the whole thing, charm and the pendant Sam gave him and shoves it into Sam’s hand. “If you don’t wear this I swear I’ll staple it to your freaking forehead.”

Sam wears it.

* ~ * ~ *

Henriksen has John Winchester’s Sierra Grande. It was found outside Chicago with no trace of the man himself. The man himself is deceased but that’s not what’s interesting to him. Dean and Sam’s father had one hell of a weapon’s collection stashed in the car along with a metric ton of fake IDs and various weird shit. It still doesn’t explain what sort of whacko John Winchester was, but it’s the same sort of thing that they found in Gordon Walker’s truck. Gordon Walker who is now also deceased with the Winchester’s prints all over everything, including Sam’s on the razor wire that took off Gordon’s head. There’s a network of nutjobs out there, and apparently the younger Winchesters, unlike their father, don’t get on with them.

* ~ * ~ *

**Present Day**

Sam wakes up in the middle of the night because there’s a girl standing on the far side of Dean’s make-shift fire. She’s dressed up like a mall elf; a little slutty, a little stupid. Her eyes are black. The demon is pretty, leggy, blonde. If it wasn’t for Jess, Sam would be about ready to hate blondes.

“Samuel Winchester,” the demon says. 

Sam knows it’s one of those dreams, like the kind he had when Azazel showed up and he wasn’t awake but they were walking around in the real world and talking as though he was. Since it isn’t real, he gets up. He can’t be hurt here, or, he doesn’t think he can be, and he doesn’t want the demon anywhere near his brother. He walks over the circle of salt, and goes outside. He should be colder than he is, down to an undershirt and sweatpants. Sam doesn’t even have any shoes on, but he doesn’t feel the cold.

Sam walks briskly out into the dark and doesn’t slow his pace although she has to trot to catch him, tottering along in her red boots. He doesn’t acknowledge her; attention only encourages demons. He doesn’t recognize this particular demon, but they’re all fairly similar at first meeting.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” the demon announces. Sam rolls his eyes but she continues. “I want to show you something.”

“Fuck off,” Sam says. He still gets a kick out of dropping the f-bomb. He doesn’t think Dean has ever said it, not even in bars. John raised him not to. Sam swore like a sailor freshman year of college. The appeal never quite wore off.

The demon grabs onto his arm, slowing him down. “You want to know,” she says and Sam stops. “You want to know who you are and what’s coming and what you could be.”

“So what?” Sam asks. It’s true, of course, but demons are tricky bastards and he really doesn’t like encouraging them.

“Don’t you want to know?” she replies. 

Sam stops walking. “Know what?” he asks.

“What things could have been.” She smiles. “So you can see what they might be.”

Sam frowns. “What’s the catch?” The demons are stringing him along, he knows that, he’d be an idiot not to see how little they give him, how they expect him to fall in line if they ease him towards it slowly enough. He needs everything they’ll give him. If that gets him closer to the edge, then fine, the easier to push them off it. Anything, even something rigged and wrong, gives him an advantage. If they show him something, he can take it apart, see how they’re trying to lead him, see what they’re leading him towards.

The demon takes off her pointed red cap, smoothes her hair and puts the cap back on. Sam wonders what the demon’s poor host was doing before she got possessed. “No catch,” she says. “Consider it a gift.”

The stupid thing isn’t that Sam agrees, the stupid thing is that for one second, Sam believes her.

*~*~*~*

Samuel Winchester is never conceived. One of the Yellow-Eyed Demon’s other children lets out Hell onto earth.

Dean is working in Hollywood when everything falls apart. He’s a sound technician and he has scruffy, slightly in need of a cut hair and an ugly goatee and a bandanna. He lives off bagels and coffee. Dean has never fired a gun in his life. He has one scar from an appendectomy and another from breaking his arm as a kid. He went to NYU on a scholarship and has a girlfriend he’s thinking of marrying. She’s a teacher. She thinks she might be pregnant and is worried because she doesn’t know he’s bought her a beautiful ring and has learned her favourite poem so he can propose to her in style. He knows it’s a little cheesy. Dean’s plan is to really overdo it, make her laugh, start everything off with a smile.

She dies in the fires.

Dean makes it out of L.A. using live ammo in prop guns and the pyrotechnics guy’s flamethrower. He tries every single trick from every single horror movie he’s ever seen and figures out that salt works and so does holy water. Dean learns that running is better. He loses three pints of blood from a vicious gash in his side but he gets all the way to where John and Mary live, still in Kansas and finds John has used his army training to keep them alive. The Winchesters make it another week before the Hell-hounds get in. John dies protecting his family. Dean dies protecting his mother. Mary dies screaming.

Andy and Ansem don’t even pause on their way past the house.

*~*~*~*

“Well,” Sam says, staring at the broken bodies of a brother who made a life for himself and a father who never lost his wife and a mother he still never knew. “Merry Christmas to you too.” He wonders where they pulled sound technician from. If Dean really could have ended up like that. Apart from the apocalypse, it makes Sam a little sad to see how smart Dean might have been had John not dragged him hunting every chance they got.

The demon shrugs. “Some things are just going to happen,” she says. “Apocalypses tend to be one of them.”

Sam looks away and the scenery shifts around him again. A new story, a new outcome.

The problem isn’t that Sam says yes, or that he thinks he believes her. The problem is that she cheats.

*~*~*~*

**Then, February 2008: 80**

Dean gets possessed and disappears. He takes the Impala and is gone when Sam wakes up. Sam should feel guilty this time, it was his lost amulet that started the problem after all, but he’s just angry; at himself, at Dean and at every freaking demon from the top of Everest to the very bottom rings of Hell.

* ~ * ~ *

Henriksen thinks the wonder brothers have done his work for him when he realizes that Dean is on his own. He follows the body trail because it’s the most reliable way to track the Winchesters. For two such distinctive men you’d think he could simply follow witness reports but they have a way of charming those they come across and creating followers as they go. So he follows the body trail instead. He just didn’t expect Dean to make it so easy. Sam, it seems, is a little better at laying low. Then Henriksen wonders if all the mess and all the murder isn’t just a way of getting baby brother’s attention.

* ~ * ~ *

**Present Day**

_Sam stands in a non-place and watches his family history unfold before him, in a new way. The way it could have been._

John Winchester is born. 

John lives his life and goes to war and gets married and has two boys, Dean and Samuel. He loves his wife and one night, when there is a fire, he hands little Sammy to Dean, tells him to run and tries to save her. She burns up on the ceiling. He burns up with her.

The relatives of the deceased can’t take the children. They’re not that close. They have too many children of their own. Dean Winchester is not a burden anyone is willing to bear.

Dean is a problem child. Or, rather, he becomes one after the fire. Dean is a chronic bed-wetter. He’s rude when he’s not furiously shy. He throws screaming tantrums when his little brother is out of his sight for more than a minute. He has fits of rage for no good reason. He steals things. He hits other children, he hits their foster parents. He has panic attacks if someone so much as lights a match near him. He keeps trying to run away with Sammy. He’s terrified of the dark.

Dozens of foster parents want a baby, but a troubled four year-old is hard work. He goes into the system and doesn’t come out. Sam is adopted. 

Dean goes through foster family after foster family and home after home. By the time he is ten the bed wetting has stopped, as has the shyness. The fits of rage have not and he’s always angry and frequently violent. His fear of fire has developed into a fascination and he has a supply of lighters and matches on him at all times to feed his pyromania. He continues stealing things and getting into fights. He doesn’t make friends. He’s still terrified of the dark.

Dean is fifteen when he runs away. He lives on the street for a while, hitchhikes south where it’s not too cold to sleep outside and busks for change. He lifts wallets and steals from stores and gets by. He goes back to the home after a year because he hates everyone but it’s easier in the system. He drinks a lot.

When Dean is eighteen, they cut him loose and he winds up in jail for attempted arson and assault and battery. Because he’s young and troubled they go easy on him and he does minimal jail time and maximum therapy. They put him on a cocktail of drugs that make him stupid and sleepy.

Sam is adorable. He is smart as a child and smart as a young man. Puberty sucks. Homework is homework. He plays soccer. He grows really tall. He graduates top of his class and goes to Yale to study history. Sam’s life is boring. Sam’s life is normal. 

When Sam is in college he starts to dream of a man with yellow eyes who tells him to do things and Sam isn’t sure how worried he should be. He goes to a therapist and he talks to his mom and his dad. His girlfriend can’t take his sudden mood swings and she becomes afraid of him, afraid he’ll hurt her. They break up. Somewhere in the muddle of nightmares and headaches and the utter mess his life has become, Sam finds out he has a living relative and seeks out his wayward older brother, Dean.

He meets Dean in a run-down bed-sit three states away. 

“I don’t fucking believe it,” Dean keeps saying. He can’t stop touching Sam’s shoulder, his arm, like he’s not sure Sam can possibly be real.

Dean works a minimum wage job at a factory and lives mainly off his disability money. He is crippled by the medication and the drinking. Dean is a disaster, drunk and grungy in nothing but ratty jeans and a wifebeater. His hair is long, pulled back into a messy ponytail and he looks up at Sam, embarrassed, and clears away bottles and newspapers and porn so Sam can sit down on the second-third-fourth-hand couch. Sam’s brother is skinny except for the slight gut that the drinking has given him. He’s a little bow-legged and he chews his nails down past the quick. He’s a fidgeter, a knee jiggler and he fiddles with a Zippo clicking it on and off. He’s a smoker too, which Sam’s not a huge fan of.

Sam wants to know everything about this missing piece of his life. Dean wants the same and he should be jealous, he should be awfully, horribly jealous of the differences in their lives, but instead he has to leave the room so Sam doesn’t see him weeping for joy. 

“You’re okay,” he says, eyelashes spiked and wet, when Sam follows him and asks if he’s all right. “Thank God, Sammy.” It should probably be weird when his long-lost, beautiful, broken brother kisses him in a dirty little bathroom of a dirty little bed-sit. It’s not. 

Sam takes a handful of Dean’s long hair and licks up the taste of cheap whiskey out of his mouth. Dean tries, once, to call it off, saying he’s just glad Sammy turned out okay, that he doesn’t want to fuck that up. 

Later, Sam looks it up on the internet, it’s not so weird. He dreams of a man who tells him to do terrible things and promises him the world. That’s weird. The nightmares that keep coming true. Those are weird. A little genetic sexual attraction is nothing.

Dean moves in with him when Sam goes to grad school. No one even notices because Dean Winchester and Samuel Mathews bear little resemblance to each other in most lights and incest is never anyone’s first thought. Dean takes his GED and enrolls at a community college. Dean stops taking the medication and quits smoking and is a bitch and a half during withdrawal. Sam has nightmares constantly. So does Dean. They fight and they fuck and they somehow make it work. Dean only lights little fires, he drinks less. He stops Sam from studying himself to death and deals with Sam’s nightmares and uncertainty over the man with the yellow eyes. Dean doesn’t give a shit about the man. He’s never met a human being he likes other than Sam. It’s oddly comforting.

Dean is working late at the public library when the demons come for Sam and he is spared. Sam spends four months going mad. Sam meets the Yellow-Eyed demon. He’s not the favourite to win, but he’s good enough. He kills everyone. He opens up his mind and he can do anything. Sam walks out of a ghost town and opens a gate to Hell and when he is done, he tells Azazel that he has something he needs to do before all hell can really break loose and he goes and finds Dean.

It doesn’t matter that Dean is living on the streets again or that Sam is a little insane now too. “I didn’t abandon you, Dean,” Sam swears and thinks himself fortunate when Dean believes him. He’s a demon general, he’s a prince, he’s anything he sets his mind to, and he can bend the world to his will. His talents and powers protect Dean even when there’s no reason for him to still be alive. But there’s no real reason for the demons to kill him either; Dean’s not going to stop his Sammy. Dean hates everyone in the world but his little brother.

They stand together at the beginning of the end and Dean lights the first fire.

*~*~*~*

Sam makes a face. “That is so clearly bullshit,” he says to the elf-dressed demon. “Pure and unadulterated B.S.”

The demon grins. “Oh please, it’s barely even a stretch. You’re homeless now, Dean’s greatest joy in life lighting the match to torch the bones, it’s only your training and motto and his relentless uselessness are stopping you from becoming Ava…” 

“Motto?” Sam asks.

“Saving people, hunting things…” the demon says, rolling her eyes.

She walks around the growing wasteland as the Other Sam and the Other Dean watch cities crumble. Other Dean’s long hair whips into his face and Other Sam’s hands are soaked in gore up to the elbows. He’s left one bloody handprint on Other Dean’s cheek and another on the back of his neck. It’s ridiculous. 

“Turn it off,” Sam says, bored.


	3. Chapter 3

**Then, March 2008: 75**

Dean has been missing for five days. The FBI has fifteen new murders to pin on him but it’s only one in the afternoon and there have only been two bodies. Sam is fairly sure there’ll be another four before midnight. One on the first, two on the second…It doesn’t matter how high the body count climbs, Sam won’t make it there in time to stop Dean.

He’s always too late, the visions he’s getting now or not, and he keeps seeing the demon in Dean’s skin killing people. The demon picks his victims completely at random it seems and Sam can’t track a pattern and he sure as hell can’t track Dean because Dean’s better at hunting than he is and Dean knows him better than anyone and this son of a bitch has all of Dean to use against Sam.

But Sam’s got all of himself to fight back with. He thinks: strength, electricity, persuasion, demonic summoning, heart stopping something or other, and more visions. Sam does the only thing he can think of, he wards the hell out of most of his motel room and he summons a demon then closes the wards on it.

He thinks Dean’s going to beat the shit out of him when he’s back to himself again and says, “Hello, Ruby.”

“Hello, Sammy,” she says. “This is a surprise, I have to say.”

Sam clenches his teeth and the lights flicker. “You call me Sam,” Sam says and Ruby’s eyes narrow but she nods. Sam gets control of his temper but he just knows she’s going to jerk him around and the thing in Dean’s body is probably killing someone else while she does it. 

“Where’s my brother?”

Ruby shrugs. “Unlike you, I am not my brother’s keeper. The demon wearing your precious Dean is somewhere…else.”

“You’re awfully calm for a demon in a Devil’s Trap when I have the Colt,” Sam says and this time the light bulbs break and they’re left standing in the dark. “Can you find Dean, or not?” It’s not quite the Voice but the more Sam opens himself up the more comes flooding in. He’s never felt so powerful. The rush is incredible and if he wasn’t terrified with worry over Dean he might be enjoying it more.

“No,” Ruby grinds out and she can lie to Sam about as well as Dean can.

Sam has had about enough of her prevarication and he lashes out, pressing in on her with his powers. Sam knows intimately what fear looks like when it’s directed at him, and she is not completely there yet, but she wasn’t expecting this. He’s stronger than she thought he’d be. He’s stronger than he thought he’d be.

“You can find my brother.”

Ruby gets up from the bed and she barely comes up to Sam’s chest. Sam could snap her host body like a twig but he thinks that Ruby might be a little harder to break. She jabs her finger against his chest and says, “Now see here,” and Sam backhands her. Ruby wipes blood away from her mouth and sneers at him. 

“Where’s my fucking brother?” Sam asks and grabs her by the throat. She scratches at him and her powers push in on his but Sam has the advantage of being really freaking big and lifts her off the floor until not even her toes are touching. “Tell me where Dean is.” His brain and his body have caught up in ways that he never would have thought of when he was fourteen and all arms and legs but now he uses his body and his powers follow. Ruby gasps and shoves at him. He doesn’t think it’s air she needs, but she’s in distress and that’s all he cares about.

“With Berith,” Ruby wheezes and Sam sets her down but doesn’t let go. “And since you ask so nicely I’ll throw in a bonus. Berith’s with a lovely young woman and her lovely young man and he’s going to slaughter them both.”

Sam has been researching everything he can find on demons and reading every scrap of information that Bobby and Ellen have sent him. Most of it is probably bullshit or useless but he knows his enemy. John taught him that much and hours and hours of studying have taught Sam rote memorization. He could have won spelling bees as a child, but instead he can list just about every lord, prince, duke, earl and whathaveyou of Hell. And Sam doesn’t know how the lore fits with the reality, if demons are devils are fallen angels, or what, but he thinks Dean’s in big trouble. As far as Sam knows, Berith is one nasty sonofabitch and a soldier at that. 

Sam smiles at Ruby. “And where is that, exactly? Give me them and I’ll let you go,” he says. “I won’t shoot you, I’ll let you walk.” 

Ruby bats her eyelashes at Sam. “You have a deal,” she says and pecks him on the lips. Her word is her bond; she’ll take him to Dean. But Sam’s word is not his bond and he has no intention of doing anything he doesn’t want to. “You know, I said I’d help you, there’s no need to be such a little bitch about all this. It’s not my fault your brother is an idiot.”

Sam would really like to strangle Ruby, but he thinks he might need her, so he gets his shit together and they head out after Dean.

* ~ * ~ *

Henriksen gets a call from a gas station attendant who thinks he’s seen Samuel Winchester in the company of some pretty young thing. Henriksen isn’t surprised when he finds out she’s blonde or that Sam is circling closer to Dean’s last known whereabouts. He only hopes he can catch them before pretty little Ruby ends up like all of Dean’s other victims, or like Meg – another missing link – and wonders if Sam isn’t bringing his brother a peace offering.

* ~ * ~ *

**Present Day**

_Sam thinks, this isn’t going to be so bad. He’s already seen Dean come so close to death; he can stand seeing a world where Dean never had to go through any of it._

Dean Winchester is never born. 

John grabs his only son, little Sammy and saves him from the fire that kills his wife.

An infant Sam is too much for John to deal with. He leaves his son with his sister even though she has half a dozen kids already and goes on his crusade. Sam’s aunt is a good woman and she raises him like he was one of her own. Sam loves his brothers and sister. He sees his father maybe ten times, a larger than life man, rough and beaten down. His mama is scared of her brother and his madness. She tries to protect Sam from it. It’s not hard; Sam is terrified of his father.

Sam was smart as a child and he is smart as a young man. Puberty sucks. Homework is homework. He plays soccer. He grows really tall. 

Sam is seventeen years old when John dies. He feels a vague sort of regret but he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t know the man well enough to mourn him. Sam doesn’t even really know what killed him. They say it was a suicide but by the time John died he had more internal injuries than a man had a right to sustain before the first few killed him. The bullet to the head with an antique colt, though. That was suicide.

Sam graduates top of his class a year later and goes to Stanford to study pre-law. Sam’s life is boring. Sam’s life is normal.

When Sam is in college he starts to dream of a man with yellow eyes who tells him to do things and Sam is terrified. He goes to a therapist and he talks to his mama and his dad. His girlfriend is supportive, she calms him after the nightmares and she keeps him sane. Somewhere in the muddle of nightmares and headaches and the utter mess his life has become, Sam finds what sort of madness his father had. Talking about demons and creatures in the dark. Sam is afraid it’s hereditary, he’s afraid he’ll wind up with a gun in his mouth.

When the demons come for Sam, Jessica dies bloody in their bed.

Sam wakes up in hell and meets the Yellow-Eyed demon. He’s not the favourite to win. Max Miller kills him before he even really understands what’s going on.

The world still crumbles but none of the Winchesters are there to see it.

*~*~*~*

Sam laughs, he can’t help it. “I should tell Dean that Azazel was wrong.”

The elf-demon cocks her head to the side, blonde hair tumbling over her shoulder. “How so?”

“Looks like Dean is the only reason we made it this far.”

She smiles, white, white teeth and Sam feels like he’s heard the punchline but missed the joke.

Sam’s no idiot. He knows the demons won’t tell him everything. He’s lucky they showed him as much as they did, but the angle of it eludes him. They want something from him, of course, want him to do something, maybe kill someone. Whatever it is, it has to do with their war and Dean. Sometimes it seems like there’s nothing else in the world but their war and Dean.

“Are we done here?” Sam asks and the demon nods, hat sliding on her shiny, shiny hair. “Then I’m going back to bed.”

Sam jerks awake, back under the sleeping bag, back to back with Dean, who is snoring. He thinks maybe, Dean’s place in this upcoming war is important. Whatever they think they want, they’re going to try and get to him through Dean, but not on Sam’s watch. They’ve tried dragging him to Hell, and they’ve tried possessing him, and they’ve tried straight up killing him, and the only place Dean’s supposed to be is with Sam. Sam’s pretty used to getting his own way when it comes to Dean and he doesn’t intend to change things now. 

Sam pushes one of his calves in between Dean’s to get a little warmer and goes back to sleep.

*~*~*~*

**Then, March 2008: 72**

Dean is sitting at a bar, bottle of Johnny Walker in one hand which isn’t like Dean because John used to drink that and Dean’s a little afraid of spending the rest of his life in the bottom of a bottle. Not that John did – not all the time, anyway – but Dean also thinks that John is stronger than he is. There’s a cigarette in Dean’s other hand, smoke curling around his head. His hair looks a little longer than usual and he holds himself differently with Berith riding in his skin. He’s wearing a red shirt, dark, bloody red and it makes him look pale. Dean looks, if anything, harder, more dangerous, but Berith is a soldier and Sam would have been an idiot to expect anything else. Sam leans against the doorframe of the bar, Ruby waiting back at the latest motel, warded into the room, and Tells everyone inside to leave. They go. 

Berith puts down the whisky he was holding but takes a long, slow drag on the cigarette in his other hand before grinding it out under the heel of Dean’s boot. “Hello, little brother,” Berith says.

“Hello, Dean, Berith,” Sam says. He wants to check Dean for injuries, but until Berith gets out of him, they’re probably not going to show and that’s not what the Yellow-eyed Demon’s Sam would do. Berith pushes away from the bar, sinuous and lazy and walks over to Sam and Sam waits. It’s not even a surprise any more when Berith crowds into Sam’s space. Sam has yet to meet a demon that didn’t think the sex-kitten act actually works. He thinks, idly, that someone should send Hell a memo that it’s just kind of desperate looking. Maybe because it’s Dean’s body it comes across as a little more aggressive, but normally, not so much.

“You two are fucked up,” Berith says, licking at the curve of Sam’s ear. “Anyone ever tell you that?” Sam has to try really hard not to roll his eyes because if there’s one thing that he’s learned it’s that the second it’s not just you in your body, odds are that the thing sharing it with you is going to want to find the nearest person who knows you and tell them everything you didn’t want them to know. He figures there’s not much Berith can tell him that he doesn’t already know about Dean, and so long as Berith is talking, he’s not doing anything else. “Seriously fucked up. I mean, damn, you’re brothers.” Berith laughs and Sam makes himself stand his ground and not flinch. It’s not Dean’s laugh; it’s harsh and metallic sounding.

“Look, whatever you’re alluding to, I don’t care,” Sam says and walks behind the bar and gets out two beers. He doesn’t pay for them. Berith sits down again and Sam hopes he’s flipping through Dean’s memories, trying to figure out what Sam’s doing. He leans across the bar, into Berith’s space and pushes one of the drinks at him.

“This is what Dean’s drinking,” Sam says. “I don’t want him drinking hard liquor.” Sam plucks the cigarette from Berith’s fingers and takes a drag because he knows if Dean’s awake in there that he’s got no idea what’s going on. He hopes fervently that he’s not fucking everything up. “See, right now you have my attention, Berith, but here’s what I want. I want you to stay where you are, but stop dicking around and make a real play.” 

“Stay where I am?” Berith drinks the beer Sam got him. His eyes aren’t black, or yellow, they’re red. The same color as really nice wine. Sam thinks Dean told him that the crossroad demon had red eyes. He’s also pretty sure that this isn’t her since he shot her in the head. He wonders if this is her boss but he doubts it. He feels powerful, like he could have anything he wanted if he didn’t care how much he had to tear down to get it.

Sam smiles, slow and nasty, remembers the way he moved and sounded when he was possessed. It doesn’t feel so far away, he feels like it’s not just a part. Sam drags on the cigarette again. It tastes like shit, demons have crappy taste in beer and tobacco, but that’s really not the point. “You’re going to help me,” Sam says, “just like Ruby is helping me, and when it’s over, I’ll let you go. Payment for services rendered.” He bares his teeth at the demon. “Instead of ripping you apart for touching my brother.”

Berith smirks at him. “Oh yeah? How are you planning on getting me out?”

“Gosh, there are just so many things I could try that wouldn’t even hurt Dean at all,” Sam says. “Or, I could summon you out, force you into someone else. Shoot you there.” Sam can’t actually do that, not yet anyway, but he doesn’t think Berith knows that. Really, right now Sam’s plan involves a Devil’s Trap and an exorcism, maybe some protective tattoos for Dean. 

“Why is Ruby helping you?” Berith suddenly asks.

“Well,” Sam says, “you know how it is. What they call me. I’ve heard general, I’ve heard boy king but I don’t know, you guys are a little fuzzy on the details. The upshot of it is, Berith, that I thought I’d start building my army.” He gives it just one beat and then: “I want to talk to my brother, for a minute.”

Berith, for the first time, looks a little wary. Seems like demons don’t like playing by other people’s rules, big surprise there. He lets Dean drive though, confidence slipping away until it’s Dean in Dean’s body, panicked and desperate.

Sam has one hand resting on his own knee and he digs his fingers in until the bone creaks, uses his other hand to catch hold of Dean , hand splayed over the back of Dean’s head. “You can’t stop me, Dean,” Sam says and hopes Dean will forgive him. “And I will have you with me. So you can watch or not, but you’re coming.” He thinks that the desperation in Dean’s face is the only thing that might stop him when this gets out of hand. And it’s going to get out of hand. He can already tell.

“Sammy,” Dean says and Sam doesn’t know what he’s asking for. It sounds like forgiveness and Dean’s forgiveness is absolute. Sam’s heard it before and he’s sure he’ll hear it again, but it comes more and more frequently these days and it’s so final. He doesn’t want final. He’d rather Dean fight; he’d rather Dean hate him. Sam shoves him away, nearly knocking Dean off the barstool.

“Berith,” Sam barks, leaving Dean sitting there, head in his hands, “Let’s go.”

He watches Dean’s eyes turn burgundy and then leads Berith out of the bar. Sam doesn’t need an army, he doesn’t really know what to do with one, except that he might be able to use it against the crossroad demon’s boss, but he doesn’t think Bobby or Ellen would be too happy to hear about what he’s doing, so he goes it alone.

* ~ * ~ *

Henriksen, frankly, is stumped. He doesn’t understand the Winchesters’ following and he sure as hell can’t figure why, after so many years, they picked up that Meg girl and traveled with her for a while. He really can’t understand why (or how) she killed the Winchester’s contacts, many of them with minor records of their own, and if that’s why Sam and Dean tied her to a chair and tortured her until she died (most likely Dean’s handiwork, judging from the damage). Whatever happened there, something new is happening because the Winchesters are bringing people along with them again. So far as Henriksen’s reports go, Ruby isn’t dead and she’s riding backseat now. Not only that, and Christ, that just doesn’t fit the MO, but there’s more. Samuel Winchester’s got his brother back and now he’s up to something, and Henriksen has no fucking idea what.

* ~ * ~ *

**Present Day**

Dean wakes up in the middle of the night because there is a freaking demon standing inside his salt lines and hell if he’s dumb enough to miss something like that. He jolts out from under the cover of the sleeping bag, holding his knife out, like that’s going to make a lick of difference.

“Don’t worry, handsome,” the demon says. “It’s a dream.” She’s dangerous looking. Dark and beautiful with a great rack. She looks exactly how he likes his women best, not that he’s super fussy, and that’s not a good start. 

Dean realizes he isn’t cold, stripped down to his boxers which, yeah, that’s a little weird when you’re sleeping with your brother, but they’ve been so close for so long that Dean only ever notices how weird his family can be when someone else is looking in and he has to worry if it’s so weird that someone isn’t going to answer his questions or is going to call social services, or the cops. The point of it is that he’s standing practically bare-assed in the freezing cold of the room watching a demon from across the dying fire and he’s not even a little bit cold at all. So okay, dream.

“How’d you get in?” he asks because he warded the shit out of the room and even in dreams the demons shouldn’t be able to get to him or Sam.

She smiles at him, blow-job lips stretched over straight white teeth. He’s so, so screwed. “You’re an open wound,” she says. “You’re wide open for this sort of thing, baby.” Dean’s amulet feels heavy on his chest and the salt seems like it’s glowing in the darkness of the room. There are sigils on the doors and windows. He tried. God, he tried.

He glances over at his brother. His stupid, ridiculous, enormous baby brother who he loves more than he loves anything else in the world. Sam is drooling on the sleeping bag, hair in his eyes. Dean gets dressed because, dream or not, he doesn’t want to tangle with a demon in his underwear and he doesn’t want her anywhere near Sam. She watches, patient, like she already knows she’s getting what she wants. He knows he’s not the Winchester they want and they’ll get to Sam through him any way they can. Dean’s been cockblocking them for twenty-three years now, with his guns, with his life and with his soul. They won’t get Sam. He’ll burn in Hell without a freaking care in the world if he knows they don’t get to Sammy.

Dean tucks the blankets up around Sam because he doesn’t trust his brother not to manage to get a cold from weird dream stuff. He steps outside, still shrugging his jacket on. The demon follows him, walking right over the salt lines like she doesn’t even see them. Maybe she’s just that good. Demons are tricky bastards and Dean always feels like he doesn’t know enough about them. He’s always a step behind these days.

“So,” Dean says. He fishes his flask out of his jacket and takes a swig because he may have gone to bed drunk but he’s sure as shit not buzzed now and out of all his options, Dean would rather be drunk. “What’s up?”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” the demon announces and Dean waits for her to elaborate. “I want to show you something.”

“Unless it’s your killer knockers,” Dean says, “no deal.” He grins at her and it’s a little forced, but he doesn’t think it shows. “Besides, I got nothing to trade.”

“No trade,” she says. “A gift. A one time only offer. I’ll show you how things could have been. How they really could have been, for you and Samuel. For free. No catch. It might help you figure out where you’re going.”

Wishes have never worked well for Winchesters. Dean takes another swing from his flask and wipes at his mouth with his hand, stalling for time. “Why would I want to see that?” he asks. He doesn’t ask “Why would you want to help me?” because odds are she’d lie and he’d rather not waste his time chatting with evil.

She smiles and hers is genuine. “How could you not?” She’s got his number, that’s for sure. “Besides, no catch.”

The stupid thing isn’t that Dean agrees, the stupid thing is that for one second, Dean believes her.

*~*~*~*

**Then, March 2008: 65**

One week closer to the deadline and Sam’s got everyone holed up like some sort of stupid commune while he tries to figure out what the fuck he’s going to do. Sam, Dean, and Dean’s demonic passenger, and Ruby stay at a motel with a pool and no discernable theme to the décor. Sam’s been practicing with his powers and apparently it’s like a beacon. More demons arrive every day. They’re not too bright, they feel the converging of other demons and Sam’s own special pull and they come, one by one. They take a human host and they knock on Sam’s door. Sam invites them in, and they peer curiously at Dean and Berith. Dean and Berith who have taken to wearing nothing but underwear and combat boots. Sam hasn’t asked why. The demons try to size Sam up, see what’s going on, and Sam, makes his deals and promises. All hail the boy king. Sam turns the sign to No Vacancy because there isn’t any. Eighty-three rooms and demons are already starting to share beds. 

They never show up en mass, they just trickle in, filling out the army. There are demons in all the motel rooms, lounging by the pool, getting their human bodies used to the recoil of firearms. Sam doesn’t think about when his life became so surreal because he suspects he won’t like the answer. He looks over at Berith sitting on the bed watching crappy daytime television and eating cheetos. About five minutes ago Dean had given himself and Sam a hair-cut. He and his demon switch off like it’s normal. Berith grins up at Sam and Sam can still tell when it’s not Dean so he doesn’t do anything but make a face and Berith starts to laugh.

“Sorry,” Berith says. “Something Dean said.” He giggles to himself and Sam has always figured Dean could charm the devil himself if he had to, but it’s one thing to think it and another to know he’s right. He can’t bear to watch them mutter and joke amongst themselves so Sam picks up the laptop and goes to sit outside. 

*~*~*~*

**Present Day**

_Dean realizes abruptly that he doesn’t want to see this._

Samuel Winchester is born. Mary and John Winchester love their younger son and Dean loves him too, in that sort of bemused way that young children love their infant siblings. When Sammy is three months old, Mary finds him cold in his crib. She can’t explain Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to Dean, so she tells him Sammy is with the angels. Dean accepts that too, in the same way he accepted that Sammy was going to live with them forever and ever.

Dean can survive the death of the little brother he never really knew. He’s young, he’ll get over it.

John and Mary’s marriage can’t survive. After a year of increasingly awful fights broken by crying and silences, they agree to divorce. Dean lives with his mother because John wouldn’t know how to look after a five-year-old boy on his own, if his life depended on it.

Dean’s the man of the house now, Mary tells him, and Dean takes it to heart. Mary goes back to work and Dean starts school, they’re a team, and, yeah, Dean idolizes his Dad, but he doesn’t know him like he knows his mom. He’s a bright, dedicated student and raised right; polite young man, and so handsome too. He gets a scholarship to Brown and his parents couldn’t be prouder. He presses a kiss to Mary’s graying hair and tells her it’ll be his turn to look after her soon.

No woman in the world would ever be able to compete with Mary, so when Dean’s at university, drunk, blowing another guy in the bathroom of some stranger’s apartment he figures the fact that he really likes dick is probably a good thing. Not that Dean doesn’t love women – he’s slept with enough to be sure of how much he likes breasts and ass and pussy – he just has better relationships with other men.

Mary worries about her only son and laments her loss of grandchildren to come but she doesn’t mind so much. Dean meets the man he wants to spend the rest of his life with when he’s twenty-four, working in a bank. He doesn’t tell John; he doesn’t want his father knowing his son’s a fag. John dies of a stroke and Dean spends a few months wondering if he did the right thing and never really comes to any sort of conclusion on the matter.

When the demons come, Dean and his partner board up the windows of their flat. Mary comes to stay with them. They wait.

They survive for a week. Dean does down first, swinging with a nail-studded baseball bat that does absolutely nothing against the hellbeasts coming in through the cracks in the floorboards. Somewhere behind the fear and the pain and the Oh God, I don’t want to die, he’s a little glad he doesn’t have to watch his family suffer.

*~*~*~*

The demon tuts and examines the scene before them. “He’s a lot older than you,” she says.

Dean looks down at the broken body of the man he might have loved in another life. He is a bit older. Forty to Dean’s twenty-eight. It’s not that much. Dean shrugs but she’s still talking.

“Looks like no matter how you slice it, you always grow up with a Daddy complex.” 

Dean rolls his eyes because he has a lot of things, yeah, but that’s sure as shit not one of them.

“I wonder what Samuel would say about all this? Knowing his brother does that sometimes.”

“Dies horribly in an apocalypse?” Dean says glibly around the tightness of his throat.

“Takes it up the ass, sweetheart. What would little Samuel say?” 

She always calls Sam, Samuel. Dean’s not sure if it’s because she’s one of those weirdoes who always use people’s full names, or if she’s being respectful. Dean gets a sick, creeping feeling when he thinks it might be the latter. It’s more disturbing than the gay thing. Dean’s blown guys before, had guys blow him. Hell, he even fucked a dude once. It’s not a big deal. What is a big deal is demons respecting his baby brother. It doesn’t say anything good. Not one damn good thing.

He shoves his hands in his pockets to hide their shaking. “What can I say?” Dean says with a shrug and a grin that feels sharp enough to cut diamond. “I’m a real thrilling guy when left to my own devices. How much more of this have we got? It’s past my bedtime.”

“Just two more,” she says and Dean takes another drink.

*~*~*~*

Henriksen has spent so much time on the Winchesters; he knows them better than they know themselves. They’re psychotic, clearly, but Henriksen has started feeling a little sorry for Dean, who’s trash and tragic and too dumbly devoted to see what’s happening. He wonders what Sam has planned next for his brother and who else will die this holiday season.


	4. Chapter 4

**Then, April 2008: 42**

Dean disappears. 

Sam beat Ruby bloody but she swore she didn’t know where Dean and Berith went. Dean’s duffel was gone, so was the Impala.

Sam prayed that Dean doesn’t do something stupid like try summoning that crossroads bitch sooner rather than later, or shooting himself, or jumping off a cliff or any other damn thing. He didn’t know how much shit Dean can talk Berith into or if Berith is the one taking his brother from him again.

He told the demons to pack up and headed out after Dean.

When he finds his brother, Dean is wasted; falling down drunk. Sam finds him at five in the morning lying on the gravel next to the Impala; cheek scraped open, knuckles bloodied, in the parking lot of a motel not three miles from the Grand Canyon. One of his army tracked Dean down, helpfully pointed Sam to the Impala. Sam rolls Dean onto his back and Dean can’t focus on him until his eyes go red and Berith coordinates Dean’s body, getting him up, waving Sam’s help away. Sam has to try very hard not to punch them. 

“Where the fuck did you go?” Sam demands, shutting the Impala’s doors and following Berith into the room he’s acquired. There’s a dead body in the bathroom. 

Berith waves an expansive hand. “We went sightseeing,” he says, locks the door behind them and sits Dean’s body on the bed. 

Sam unlocks the door, drags the corpse outside and leaves it to his demons to dispose of. He turns on Berith but Dean’s back in charge and still drunk as hell. “Sammy,” Dean slurs, nearly falling over. Sam really, really wants to punch them.

“I wanted you to come,” Dean says, and he says it like it’s an explanation for twelve days of panic and twelve days where Sam wasn’t thinking about how the heck he was supposed to stop the crossroads demon and undo the mess he’s made. Dean tries to get up but his legs are boneless under him and he slides off the bed onto the dirty blue carpet. Sam stares down at him and watches Dean crawl, watches him try and get himself to his feet. “Berith was right; you’d try and stop me,” Dean says.

Sam crouches so he can look Dean in the eye. “Listen carefully, Dean,” he says. “If you ever compare that shit-bag and I and say he’s right, I’ll leave you to him.” He doesn’t mean it, not really, but he’s mad and Dean is such an idiot.

Dean looks utterly wrecked and Sam hopes that Berith is as close to Dean as he seems to be since it would just be the fucking icing on the cake to have the demon enjoying Dean’s obvious misery. “Sammy,” Dean says, “Sammy,” but doesn’t seem to have anything else to add. He clutches as Sam’s shirtfront, until Sam pries his fingers off.

“You’re such an assmunch,” Sam says and hauls Dean back onto the bed. “What were you thinking?”

Dean shrugs and completely fails to extricate himself from his own jacket, tangling it around his left arm. “Berith…” He gives up, the jacket still dragging from his wrist, and starts on his jeans. “I want to, you know, in case. And he wants out.”

Sam has no idea what Dean’s talking about but he doubts that Dean is going to get any more coherent. He bats Dean’s hands away and he wants to talk to Berith but the son of a bitch is too smart to come out now and Sam doesn’t want to talk through Dean. He helps his older brother undress down to his boxers and a t-shirt, wipes the dried blood off Dean’s face and knuckles with a damp cloth and puts him to bed. Dean rambles, half of it incoherent mumblings, and finally Sam shucks most his own clothing and climbs into the single bed with Dean. 

The rest of Sam’s demons are waiting for him to come back and give them more orders. Sam has figured out how to use the Voice on them and every time he gives an order it lasts longer than it did before. He thinks he’ll be able to make his orders stand one of these days and the Voice won’t wear off. 

Dean feels very small, even though they’re crammed together uncomfortably. His breathing sounds choked up and he digs his fingers into the muscle of Sam’s thigh, clinging. Sam cups the back of his brother’s head. Dean’s skull feels fragile in his hand, pulse in his temples and strong at his throat. “I’m not going to leave you,” Sam says. “I shouldn’t have said that.” Dean looks desperately grateful and Sam’s stomach turns over.

The next morning Dean wakes up with the bitch of a hangover that he deserves but Sam is merciless and drags him to a diner to ease his hangover with grease while he answers Sam’s questions. The answers are sadly obvious: Dean is still afraid he’s going to die and doesn’t want to go out feeling like he’s missed seeing the world he’s worked so hard to keep safe; Berith wants out of Dean’s body; Berith made the decision that Sam would get in the way so he took the Impala and headed off. It’s so freaking stupid. Dean is pale and sick with his hangover and his guilt. 

Sam puts a possessive hand on the back of Dean’s neck and Dean looks at him, eyes bloodshot. “If this doesn’t work out,” Dean says and pushes bacon and beans around his plate. “Don’t…” Dean shoves food into his mouth rather than finish the thought. Don’t sell anything to anyone. Don’t bring me back. Don’t go darkside. Don’t use your army. Sam’s not sure which one Dean was thinking, maybe all of them, but they’re all pretty shitty outcomes.

Sam thinks of their mother’s death, John’s, Jess’. “I’d let the whole fucking world burn,” he says and Sam thinks that maybe the demon hadn’t lied, that he isn’t quite right, because he means it, and the more he uses his powers the more he means it, and he shouldn’t. But he does and Dean is his, not anyone else’s, and if he’s a demon general, then he’ll go to war over Dean.

Dean finishes his omelet while Sam calls demons to the diner and sends them into fry cooks and waitresses and truck drivers. He thinks Dean throws up in the bathroom before they leave, but that could be the hangover, and Sam doesn’t ask.

*~*~*~*

**Present Day**

_Dean watches the past unfold and he doesn’t think he can stand to watch much more of this. He doesn’t want to know anymore, no good can come of it, but it’s like a car wreck and he can’t look away._

John Winchester is born. 

John lives his life and goes to war and gets married and has two boys, Dean and Samuel. He loves his wife and one night, when there is a fire, he hands little Sammy to Dean, tells him to run and tries to save her. She burns up on the ceiling. He burns up with her.

Dean is a troubled child at first. He curls close to his brother, barely lets anyone near the baby. Dean looks after Sammy. John gave him to Dean to look after, it’s simple, even a child could understand it. The nice lady in foster care says that Sammy will be just fine in his crib, but tiny, scared Dean knows better. He’s not okay in his bed and he’s four, Sammy is only a baby, he’s probably way more scared. They let him sleep in the crib with his brother since it stops Dean from having terrible, awful nightmares. They tell him not to roll over and squash the baby but Dean thinks he’d have to be pretty dumb to squash Sammy; Sammy’s fat and round and takes up plenty of space. Dean tells Sammy not to roll over and squish him but Sammy can’t talk yet and is more interested in trying to eat his own foot. Dean takes this as agreement.

It doesn’t come naturally. Dean isn’t even five years old; of course it doesn’t come naturally. Dean gets old fast, he has to if he’s going to keep Sammy safe from the thing that burned up John and Mary. He rarely talks to anyone but the baby, but he watches everything, demands to be shown how, until he understands. Dean learns to dress himself, learns how to pour milk without spilling, how to microwave Sammy’s bottle, how to dress Sammy, how to take care of them, no matter whose home they end up in.

By the time Dean is ten, he’s certain there is something wrong with him, because he remembers sometimes what he saw in his brother’s bedroom. How Mary died on the ceiling. And he knows, deep in his little-boy bones, that he’s not wrong. He starts prowling the adult section of the library when no one is looking, reading up on the occult. He finds a whole lot of nothing. 

They’re both good boys, those poor Winchesters, everyone says. Sammy is bright and friendly and outspoken, his shadow of a brother trailing behind him, keeping him out of trouble. Both of them smart as whips. Keep their noses clean, get good grades. And so cute.

Sammy isn’t cute, Sammy is adorable. Dean is “handsome” already. Their foster parents adopt them. They are loved. At age eleven Dean gives Rebecca Richardson a Valentine’s Day card and has his first kiss. He still looks after his brother with a fierce devotion, still won’t talk about the fire. Their lives are almost boring. 

Dean turns thirteen. He finds Missouri Mosley and cuts school for the first time in his life to go there.

She takes his hand and sits him down at the table, gives him a sandwich and a talking to for cutting class. She asks him if he really, really wants to know, because there’s no going back, and it isn’t safe. It isn’t fair, but it isn’t safe. Dean needs to know. He has to know because he doesn’t know what happened to his mom or his dad and how can he protect Sammy if he doesn’t know what he’s protecting him from.

Missouri tells him about vampires and demons, werewolves and skinwalkers. She tells him about ghosts, all the different types of spirits, ghuls and the fae and all the things that go bump in the night. She tells him to call Caleb, a friend of a friend, and to come back, every Monday evening for lessons from her. 

Dean lies to his foster mom. He tells her he’s working on a project for class and goes to Missouri’s house instead. She teaches him spellwork, herbs and salt and traps. She teaches him how to batten down the hatches. How to exorcise. 

Every Saturday, Caleb teaches him how to fight.

Dean gets tough, learns how to shoot, how to spar, how to break down a gun and build it back up. He learns how to drive, how to run, how to cheat at cards and how to shoot a mean game of pool.

Dean is fifteen before anyone catches on. He tells his foster mom he’s earning a little spare cash helping Missouri out. He tells her Caleb is an English tutor. He tells Sammy the truth and Sammy rats him out.

Dean is grounded six ways from Sunday and slapped in therapy.

It doesn’t stop him.

He starts lying better to cover his tracks. He gets older and it gets easier. Dean loses friends because every time he’s “over at so and so’s house” he’s really training, learning. He doesn’t tell Sammy what he’s doing, but he does what he can to prepare for the day that Sammy might understand. 

Dean goes on his first hunt three weeks after his sixteenth birthday. He tracks, salts and burns a fairly run-of-the-mill vengeful spirit. Caleb buys a six-pack and Dean gets wasted on PBR and throws up and he’s never felt more awesome in his life.

Dean hunts when he can but after that things get better. 

Sammy is smart as a child and smart as a young man. He grows really tall. He graduates top of his class and goes to Harvard to study English Literature. Sam’s life is boring. Sam’s life is normal. Dean graduates high school and gets a place at Northwestern studying psychology with a minor in classical mythology. He still hunts when he can.

When Sam calls him, and says, “Hey, remember when you got busted for doing weird shit? You were sixteen, I think. With those weirdoes? Remember you said to me that there were demons, that mom died on the ceiling?”

Dean makes a non-committal grunt in reply and Sammy ploughs on. 

“Remember I told on you?” 

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Well, I’ve been…shit, Dean, I’ve been having weird dreams and I can’t…I thought…” Sam hangs up.

Dean knew. He knew and he was right. Dean quits his job, gives his notice on his lease. He gives almost everything he owns to goodwill and loads up what’s left into his truck. He has two duffels of clothing, salt, gas, jujus and herbs and candles and half a million other fucking things that will protect them. He has an arsenal hidden around the truck, in the back, in the side panels, in the wheel wells. 

Dean gets in his truck and drives across the country to get to his brother. Sam isn’t all that impressed with Dean throwing away his life on a phone call. He’s not impressed, but he’s grateful. The gratitude almost doesn’t hold when Sam’s apartment catches alight and Dean saves Sam from a fire for the second time in his life but Sam’s girlfriend dies, bloody on the ceiling. Dean starts doing research into what the hell is going on with Sam and women and people winding up pinned above him and they both start training in earnest. Sam has years and years to catch up on, but Dean takes him to Caleb and they meet other hunters, start tagging along when someone will have them, striking out on their own when no one will.

When Azazel comes for Sam, Dean is waiting for him. Sam is waiting for him. They are ready and they are strong.

Dean crawls away from the wreckage of their Bunkie on Caleb’s property and Sam is gone.

Sam is killed in the contest. Dean sells his soul because he’s spent all his life keeping Sammy safe and he won’t give up now. He gets ten years. He doesn’t tell Sam. He’s used to not telling people things, and this is the last time. This is the last big one and then he’s done.

They hunt demons. They hunt Ava.

Sam develops powers and Dean helps him hone those too.

They stop Ava. They stop the demons. Dean feels drained and wrung out and he’s done it. Everything he meant to do, he did. He talks Sammy into going back to school, watches him from a distance as his little brother does great things. Dean goes back to hunting.

When Dean is thirty-eight, his debt is called in. He goes quietly. He leaves behind nothing substantial but a legacy of people who will live because of him.

Sam lives on.

*~*~*~*

“I’ve never been that good in my life,” Dean says, scoffing. “Not one freaking minute of it.”

She stalks towards him and Dean stumbles back and he wants to tell her it’s not fair, it’s not his time yet, but he won’t beg. Not over a few months. She backs him up against a tree and runs her fingers up one thigh, skating over his groin, pushing up under his t-shirt to scratch rough and painful at his stomach. Dean has never been less hard in his life. 

“I’m not making this up, I’m just showing you a what could have been.”

Dean’s seen what could have beens, and he says as much. She laughs, fingertips of her other hand brushing gentle over his cheek and temple. “A djinn?” she asks. “They don’t show you anything but what you make up yourself. Ask Samuel if you won’t believe me, since I know you can’t believe yourself. That thing the djinn showed you wasn’t real. That’s not you. I can show you everything, every outcome. Any way you want to see it go down, I can show you.” Her breath smells like sulfur. “Sometimes, you’re a goddamn hero,” she says. “Sometimes you’re a monumental fuck-up. But some things always go down the same way and, baby, you’re a disaster deep in your marrow.”

The demon strokes a hand through his hair, scratching slightly like he’s a good dog. He closes his eyes and goes with it. Maybe if he plays nice now, maybe if he lets her mess him up…Dean doesn’t really think anything can make Hell better and sooner or later, that’s where he’s going. Hell is Hell and it’s going to suck beyond his comprehension, but he thinks maybe if just one demon likes him enough to make him her prison bitch, well, that might be better than taking it from the whole damned hoard of them. 

Dean kisses her and knows that everything he knows about demons is true. Sometimes they’re liars and he knows that because he’s a shitty excuse for a human life and she’s throwing out words like hero, but then she shows him the wreck of his own reflection and he knows that sometimes demons prefer the truth, just because it’s guaranteed to screw you up worse.

*~*~*~*

Henriksen is fairly sure he’s getting close this time. A string of murders in Wilmington, Delaware points towards the Winchesters and he’s almost certain that he’s right behind them this time and that they have no idea.

*~*~*~*

**Then, April 2008: 30**

Dean is gone again and Sam thinks he might start tearing things down early. 

He hadn’t spoken to Berith in over a week, just glad to have his brother back and now Berith has taken his brother off again. This time the Impala is still in the parking lot, so Sam figures it wasn’t Dean’s idea and that Berith doesn’t want to be tracked. 

Sam called Dean’s cell five times and left five increasingly pissed off and worried messages. Then he rallied the troops and headed out.

Dean calls Sam before Sam can find him and when he speaks he sounds like he’s dehydrated; his voice is cracked and raspy. He says, “Sam? I’m okay, okay?” and then the phone is taken from him and it’s a demons Sam has never met on the other end.

“Hello, Samuel,” the demon says. “In brief, my name is Andras, I have your brother, and I hold his contract. So don’t fuck with me.”

Andras knows Samuel is coming, is counting on it, and has summoned his own army of nasty little hellbeasts. He keeps Dean and Berith tied down with thick rope that cuts into Dean’s skin so he bleeds all over the back seat of their stolen car. Dean broke his own wrist trying to get out of handcuffs. Dean, not Berith. He’s filthy and battered and all the holy water has made him sick and he can’t keep food down. He begs Andras not to hurt his brother when he sees Andras’ army. He has nothing left to offer and nothing left to sell, so he begs until Berith takes over and then they’re mostly silent, muttering to themselves out loud. Andras likes Dean, admires him almost; but he’s a demon, and this is how they like humans best. 

Sam doesn’t want to debate with Andras over what he will or will not do if they let Dean go. He doesn’t want to know how much damage Dean took when Andras fought Berith to get him captured. He doesn’t want Andras’ description of how pretty his brother is tied up, or how much holy water he’s poured over Berith, fucking up both their brothers. Well, Sam’s pretty sure that the demons aren’t brothers, but it’s like family. 

He doesn’t swear he’ll kill Andras; he doesn’t do anything but listen.

*~*~*~*

**Present Day**

_This one, Dean thinks, won’t be so bad._

Dean Winchester is never born. 

When Mary burns up on the ceiling, John and Sammy go with her.

*~*~*~*

Dean rolls his eyes. “You’re kidding, right?” he says. “My dad wouldn’t let that happen. No way.”

She laughs. “In one version he did, but there you have it. I’ll give you one more for free.”

*~*~*~*

Dean Winchester is never born. 

John grabs his only son, little Sammy and saves him from the fire that kills his wife. Infant Sammy is a lot for John to deal with, but he pushes his grief back. There’s no way he could have seen what he thought he saw so he goes to therapy, talks to a soft spoken little wisp of a man who asks him about his tour in Vietnam and prescribes him drugs to combat the PTSD, whatever the hell that is.

John gets on with getting on. He’s not the most adept father, Mary was the one who really looked after Sammy, but he tries. He sucks up his pride and calls his parents and his own mother comes to help. She teaches him what to do and, more importantly, what not to do. She gives him advice on not screwing up his son completely.

Sammy is a fairly normal boy.

Sam is adorable. He is smart as a child and smart as a young man. Puberty sucks. Homework is homework. He grows really tall. Sam’s life is boring. Sam’s life is normal. He fights with John over college. John wants him to take over the garage; Sam wants more from his life. He applies to university without John’s permission and they fight again. Sam won’t be stopped and he goes off and studies computer science at MIT.

When the dreams come Sam loses his shit. He drops out, unwell, sick with the visions. He thinks he’s going insane; the constant seeing of death is making him suicidal and Sam checks himself into a psych ward. 

John tries to understand but he doesn’t and then Sammy disappears.

Sam spends a week in a ghost town, finding out exactly what the visions are all about. Survival kicks in and he holds his own until Jake kills him.

John dies when the demons come and he never does find out what happened to his son.

*~*~*~*

Dean lets the demon breathe sulfur, hot and wet over his jaw, her hands over his heart and his throat. “You know that’s not what I want to know,” he says quietly.

She presses that great rack up against his arm and grins at him. “Of course it isn’t. You want to know what happens if Sammy is really the anti-Christ, or the Boy King, or whatever the Hell else we’ve been planning. You want to know if he’ll kill. If the apocalypse can be averted. What Ruby is doing. Who I’m working for.”

Dean closes his eyes and waits for the punchline. He isn’t disappointed.

“You can’t always get what you want,” the demon says, backing up, giving him room to breathe. “But if you try sometimes…”

“I’ll get what I need?” Dean asks dryly.

“Well, no,” the demon says. “You’ll likely still get fucked, but at least you’ll have tried.” She flaps a hand at him. “Go on then, you’ve seen all I’m willing to show you. Go back to your brother.”

Dean does as he is told.

*~*~*~*

Henriksen eats his Christmas Eve ham with Reed and his team. It’s miserable in Delaware, but it’s rather warming to know how close they are to bringing down the Winchesters. It makes the overcooked food delicious and the crappy motel they’re staying in almost cozy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Then, April 2008: 21**

Dean is less than ten yards away, crouched at Andras’ feet like a dog. The Wal-Mart parking lot is empty except for Sam’s human-bound demons waiting next to their cars, armed with rock salt and silver and holy water and on the other side of the lot is Andras’ army; small demons and hell hounds and dark crawling shadows that Sam doesn’t have names for. He hasn’t seen anything like it before. He can’t believe that they’re having a showdown outside a fucking Wal-Mart.

Sam thinks about just putting two of the Colt’s bullets in Andras’ host’s head, a man, suited up like James Bond and pretty as any girl. Apparently Andras isn’t as stupid as he seems because he kicks Dean, sends him falling onto his shoulder, hands bound behind his back.

“Tell him,” Andras snarls. “Tell him what’ll happen to you if he kills me.”

It’s Berith who answers, which says something for how capable Dean is of talking. “His…his _minions_ have orders to take us apart if you kill him.” He struggles back onto his knees, voice still shredded. “Dean’s fucked up.”

Dean’s body doesn’t have a mark on it. It won’t until Berith’s out of him.

Sam’s hands fist and he thinks: strength, electricity, and heart stopping something or other. He looks at Andras and feels lightning crackle down his fingertips, sparking and flashing. Andras looks perturbed but not afraid. He trusts Sam not to want to hurt Dean any more. Everyone is watching him.

He just wants his brother back.

“Give me Dean,” Sam says, “and I’ll give you…” Berith, or maybe Dean, looks away. “I’m willing to deal,” Sam says finally.

Andras smiles and puts his hand on Dean’s head. “Of course you are.”

“Sammy, don’t,” Dean says and is kicked again for his trouble.

“I hold his contract,” Andras says, “and I’m willing to give it to you in exchange for a few things. One, we make a contractual agreement that you will not confine, exorcise, or kill me. Two, you kill Ruby.”

“Deal.” Sam takes a step forward and Andras holds up a hand for him to stop and Sam shakes his head with a smile. “No more conditions, Andras. That’s all I’m willing to trade.”

Andras smirks. “No it’s not.” He crouches down next to Dean and tips his face up towards Sam. “Now, are you going to shut up and listen, or not?”

“Get your hands off him,” Sam says, striding across the parking lot, leaving his demons waiting behind him for his command. Andras’ hellbeasts come for him but Sam doesn’t stop. “Fall in,” he snaps and the creatures that fawn around his feet turn on those that won’t. He stalks through the fighting shadows and gets up in Andras’ face. He’s a head taller but Andras just sneers up at him.

“You want me to take him now?” Andras asks, standing. “Because I can drag his sorry ass to Hell if that’s what you’d like, Samuel.”

Sam takes one more step forward. “Take my deal, Andras. Because I will follow you down there and will take it, and you, apart to get him back, if it takes me the rest of my life. There are hundreds of demons I can make deals with and once you take Dean, you’ve lost your only bargaining chip. So take my deal and walk away.” Andras hesitates. “Going once,” Sam says. “Going twice.” 

“Fine,” Andras snaps, “fine. But it has to be a real deal. Not what you’ve promised some of these others.” He tips his face up towards Sam and Sam leans down, ignoring everything around him, and kisses Andras. “We have a deal,” Andras hisses, wiping his mouth, like Sam’s the one that tastes of sulfur.

Sam calls Ruby across the parking lot. She comes slowly, unwillingly as Andras and Sam call off their hellbeasts. Sam doesn’t hesitate. With his brother on the ground and a thousand demons snarling at each other around rattling shopping carts and burned out parked cars he doesn’t have time for quibbling. He pulls out the Colt and shoots Ruby in the head.

Andras pushes Dean towards Sam. “Have him then, soul, demon, and all.”

Sam helps Dean to his feet, one of Dean’s arms slung over his shoulders and they limp away, just like always. 

*~*~*~*

**Present Day**

Sam wakes up, Dean sprawled heavily over far more space than he is due, fingertips of one hand under his pillow, near the Colt. His face is smushed up against Sam’s arm, one of his own arms slung over Sam’s chest. He’s warm and a little sweaty and he looks unhappy, even in his sleep.

“Nmmph,” Dean says when Sam stretches slightly. There’s a present under the craptastic tree, the one from Dean’s duffle. Sam wants to put some wood on the fire, get Dean’s own present out of his duffle so they can both pretend to be surprised.

Sam thinks about his family dying again and again and how he had stood, as a different man, with a different Dean at the end of the world and they had lived. Not that he wants hell on earth, but he wants to live, and he wants Dean to live. If he is going to go up against demons and win he is going to need to practice. 

He thinks about the wood, lying not two feet from the fire. He thinks about a motel full of demons waiting for his command and how they’ll come if he practices, how more and more will descend until he and Dean are royally fucked. Sam cards the hand of the arm that Dean isn’t lying on through Dean’s hair and thinks about fire. He thinks about watching Dean die. The scar on his back itches and Sam feels the power rushing back in when the wood moves the two feet.

Dean mumbles something incoherent against Sam’s shoulder and starts to stir. Sam has run out of time if he wants to surprise Dean. He digs his fingers into the skin of Dean’s neck and just gets on with it. It’s easier the second time, like riding a bike. It feels less like he’s forcing it. Ava was right; it’s like opening up, like relaxing something that has been clenched for far too long.

“Dude,” Dean complains, blinking sleep out of his eyes. Sam realizes he’s holding his brother down by the neck and that in two seconds it’s going to be too late to prevent his fingerprints from being bruise marks. Sam waits two seconds and then lets go.

“Looks like you haven’t been a total asshole this year,” Sam says and winces when Dean sits up and the sleeping bag tents around them, letting the cold air in.

Dean looks over at the tree in surprise. “You didn’t have to,” he protests, but he’s grinning like he’ll split his face in two.

Sam thinks about destiny and the future and how the fuck he’s supposed to stop the encroaching darkness from swallowing up him and Dean. He puts one hand on the back of Dean’s neck and one on Dean’s cheek and kisses him. 

*~*~*~*

Dean is hung-over. His mouth tastes like something died in it and he can smell the alcohol on his breath. He feels shaky and his stomach is churning. His brain feels like its hovering three feet to the left of him and the empty space has been filled up with pain.

Dean is hung-over and Sam is kissing him.

Sam’s hands are really freaking huge and Dean can’t really get his head past anything other than that because he’s hung-over and groggy and Sam is kissing him.

“What the hell?” Dean says, trying to jerk away. He doesn’t get very far because Sam’s still got his grabby hands on Dean’s neck and he’s pretty strong for such an enormous girl.

Sam doesn’t let go but he stops kissing Dean. “Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all. “You want to talk about this?”

Dean has absolutely nothing to say on the subject. He’d have more questions if he could get his head straight but the hangover is making it hard to think anything other than “Holy shit.” 

“Yeah,” Dean says. He tugs back, to see if Sam is willing to let go this time and isn’t surprised that Sam’s hand stays exactly where it is. “No…I…”

Sam kisses him again and it’s not like the kisses Dean’s seen him give to girls, this one is demanding. It’s Sammy, Dean’s pushy little brother who Dean can’t say no to. It’s Sam using that against him, the bastard. “I need you,” Sam says and his fingers tighten on the back of Dean’s neck. It doesn’t sound like a request. Barely a demand. Just a statement of fact.

Dean thinks he might stop breathing, that his heart might stop beating, just for a moment because he’s a sucker for pretty lies. Because it has to be a lie. Because if it’s not a lie then he needs to do something right away because that’s not the way it works. Not if Sam ever wants to get out of this alive; get away from hunting, and the demons. Sam can’t need him. 

“I need you to give me this,” Sam says and Dean starts breathing again. This. It’s that thing he doesn’t think about, that he wouldn’t ever think about because it’s not what either of them should be doing. If this is what Sammy needs now, Dean can do that. He can. He can. 

“Dean,” Sam says gently and Dean realizes how hard he’s breathing, eyes squeezed shut against the hang-over and the look on Sam’s face. He opens his eyes and Sam sighs, thumb of the hand on Dean’s cheek smearing wetness across Dean’s face. 

Dean shakes his head as best he can. “No,” he says. He thinks he might throw up and he’s not sure if it’s the incest or the Jack Daniel’s. “No, Sam, I can do this, I can.” He grabs Sam’s undershirt, knuckles bumping against Sam’s chest and ribs and pulls, shifts Sam off-balance, kisses him, opens up for his baby brother. Dean bites at Sam’s mouth and shoves at him, tangles a hand in Sam’s hair and does what he does best.

“This is how we save ourselves,” Sam says into the skin behind ear and jaw as Dean manages to grapple his little brother onto his back.

Dean jerks away, wiping his mouth with his hand and wiping his palms on his thighs. He’s warm with hangover and fear but the hair on his arms and legs stand up in the chill of the room. “What?” he demands, scooting back as Sam sits up. “You think this…you think _this_ is going to help? Help with _what_?”

Sam reaches for him but Dean stumbles off the mattress and goddamn the floor is cold. Sam looks up at him and his face is whitewashed the color of bone in the early morning light and the dull glow of the fire. He looks patient and endless. “I’ve seen some of it,” Sam says quietly. “They’re liars, but I’ve seen enough to know…” He shrugs. “The only way we’re going to walk out of this is together.”

“I’m not-” Dean starts and can’t finish. His feet are freezing. He feels sick to his stomach. He tells himself to stop being such a pussy. “We can’t.”

“We can. We’ll walk out of this mess together.” Sam reaches out a hand for him. “They won’t be able to stop us.”

Together has nothing to do with sometimes, only recently, he’s not a pervert, sometimes thinking his little brother is good looking. Like, _good_ looking. And it’s not since after Stanford. But it has nothing to do with standing together because they can do that as brothers, they don’t have to screw that up. Only Sam thinks they do and the demons wouldn’t tell him how to make things better and Dean is way too hungover to know what the right call is. He knows what to do with evil things. He knows what he wants to eat at diners and how he likes his pay-per-view and how to fix his car when she complains, but he does not have the first clue about this. He doesn’t know anything except that he wants it and it makes him sick and he’s signed up to go to Hell for Sammy and with that as a precedent, he can’t really be surprised when he steps back towards the mattress. 

*~*~*~*

Sam doesn’t know why Dean comes back to the bed. He’s not sure he wants to. Dean’s head is a pretty scary place to see into sometimes and he looks about a second away from freaking out so Sam just doesn’t go there. 

It’s not like Sam ever _really_ thought about this, other than a passing thought here or there. He’s fooled around with guys, in college. Shit happens, he was curious. Dean might have too, Sam’s not sure. Somewhere in Dean’s long history of fucking around Sam suspects that he’s at least let a guy blow him. Either way, that doesn’t mean that Dean wants this any more than Sam’s thought about it.

Dean hunkers down on the mattress, looking like he’s one wrong move away from bolting.

Sam can’t do this on gut reaction so he looks at his brother, really looks at him, even as he’s tugging the sleeping bag up so it covers Dean’s ice-blocks masquerading as feet. Dean is his flesh and blood and Sam’s been looking at Dean for so long that he’s not sure how he’s supposed to notice something different this time. This is the boy who tied Sam’s shoes for him before Sam could do it himself. Dean made Sam’s lunches for him and helped him with his homework and taught him how to shoot cans off a fence long before John even knew that Sam knew. Dean is thousands of miles of squabbling in the back seat and sharing desserts in diners, he’s hand-me-downs, stealing for Sam what he couldn’t get honestly, burned homemade meals and taking the brunt of Sam’s tantrums and John’s stubbornness. 

Sam thinks of their millions of miles of history. He thinks of bloody handprints and flash memories of things that never happened and watching Other Sam and Other Dean fuck, rough hands and bitten lips and the sounds that Dean, real Dean, Sam’s Dean makes when he comes that Sam can’t help but know after so many years in each other’s pockets.

It should be weird that Sam can one day look at his older brother and decide that, yes; he does want to have sex with him. It’s not. Sam talks to demons on a regular basis, that’s weird. Dean sold his soul for his brother. That’s weird. Their entire fucking lives are weird. A little incest is almost normal in comparison.

Sam grabs his brother by the wrist and hauls him across the mattress. Gets his hand in Dean’s short hair and licks up the taste of cheap whiskey out of his mouth. Dean grabs onto his arms, fingers digging bruises into Sam’s skin. Hands that have held Sam from his birth to his death and on again. He’s not pushing Sam away, he’s just holding on.

“Sammy,” Dean says against Sam’s mouth. It means “little brother” and it means “I’d do anything to keep you safe/happy/whateveryouwant.” It means “I’m sorry.” It means “I’m a fuck up but forgive me.” It means “Don’t leave me.”

Sam is possibly evil and definitely selfish and he doesn’t care that this is textbook fucked up. He can have this from Dean. 

*~*~*~*

**Then, May 2008: 8**

Sam makes his army wait in the motel and then he and Dean lay down a devil’s trap, just like Samuel Colt did. Every time Sam uses his gifts, demons can track him, he’s easy to find, shining out like a beacon. They can find him even when he doesn’t use it, but Dean insists they lay low until they can figure out what the heck is going on.

They don’t call Bobby. They don’t call Ellen. They just leave the demons trapped in the motel and walk away. They can’t exorcise them all. They can’t kill them all. Even Sam couldn’t stop his army from turning on him if they tried that.

When they’re done. When their hatches are as battened down as they are going to get they sit down to figure out what they’re going to do about Berith. 

Berith is not impressed by their decision but there’s not a lot he can do when Sam springs a Devil’s Trap on him, ties him down and tries to exorcise him.

Blood drips out of Dean’s nose and mouth, cuts open up on him, he can’t breathe for the broken ribs and Sam can’t even see all the injuries yet. Sam has to stop and Berith can’t stop laughing because he’s the only thing holding Dean’s body together now. So Sam uses his powers, the Voice, the whammy, one last time and banishes Berith to stay silent and unnoticeable inside Dean.

It’s not ideal and Dean would refuses to talk to Sam for a week, unable to deal with demons and demons and demons but he’s barely got more than a week on his ticket and they’re still not sure this stunt is going to work. Sam waits and Dean forgives him. Dean always forgives him and this is no different. They pack it down, they don’t talk about it. They lay low, and Sam doesn’t use his powers, and they keep on hunting. What else can they do?

*~*~*~*

**Present Day**

For a while it’s almost like fighting. Sam shoves him and Dean shoves back. They wrestle under the slick cover of the sleeping bag, trying to pin each other. Only Sam keeps biting at him, marking up the side of his neck, kissing his mouth. He pulls off the wifebeater and uses his three inches of height and muscle to pin Dean face-down on the mattress. Most of his weight is on Dean’s pelvis, hard on pressed against Dean’s ass, Dean’s arms trapped uncomfortably underneath himself. Sam eases up enough that Dean can move his arms but every time Dean moves he’s got Sam’s dick grinding against him and he’s honest-to-God just not sure how he feels about that yet. His own dick is mildly interested in all the friction and the feel of warm skin against his own. And Sam doesn’t smell totally foul either. If Dean was in a more giving sort of mood he might concede that Sam actually smells pretty good. For a dude. For his brother. There’s probably some fancy way of describing it. Musky or some shit like that. 

But it’s Sammy. And that’s fucked up, right? Even if Sam wants it because Sam has wanted some really dumb stuff in his day. And Dean doesn’t want it, he doesn’t. He wouldn’t think it. He tries not to think it.

The world might end. He can’t do shit about it. He won’t be able to protect Sam much longer, for all of his brave words. He can’t save Sam. What a thing to tell him on Christmas Eve.

Dean groans in frustration, mashing his face against the sleeping bag underneath him. Sam makes a soothing sound and shifts his weight again, and Christ, his baby brother is hung. Sam lifts up, one hand tugging at Dean’s hip, urging him up onto his hands and knees. So Dean goes, because it’s starting to feel a little late to protest about his virtue. Then one of Sam’s ginormous hands is cupping Dean’s cock through his boxers and Dean pops a hard on, a real hard on, and he feels almost dizzy with it. This thing, this terrible thing, the two of them in a dirty, cold squat, knees slippery on the sleeping bag their Dad bought them years ago, Sam’s bare chest pressed against Dean’s back, warm and sweaty, it’s blinding and deafening and crippling. It’s also really turning Dean’s crank and how was he supposed to know that brothers don’t sell their souls for each other, that they’ve always been a step to the left of this. It’s one thing to know you want something so messed up. It’s another to have it given to you.

Dean lowers his head, and he doesn’t choke back a sob, he doesn’t. Sam mouths wet and slick at Dean’s jaw and ear then sits back on his heels. He doesn’t wait for Dean to even try and sit up, just hooks his fingers in the waistband of Dean’s shorts and tugs them down around Dean’s thighs, kicking off his own sweatpants.

Dean closes his eyes and then opens them again really quickly when Sam puts those huge mitts of his on Dean’s ass and spreads him. It feels weird. It’s kind of hot too. Dean squirms and doesn’t get anywhere.

“It’s okay,” Sam says, like that makes any sense at all, and then he leans over and licks at Dean and that just isn’t right. Dean’s cock is leaking against his stomach and he’s making embarrassingly high-pitched girl noises because of how awesome it feels, but, dude, that’s his ass. Sam better not try and kiss him again. 

He thinks, belatedly, that he doesn’t have any lube and he hasn’t bought condoms in so long that he can’t remember where he stashed the ones he wasn’t using. That doesn’t seem to be one of Sam’s concerns though, since that’s his finger pushing against Dean’s hole, next to his tongue.

Dean has been shot, stabbed, beaten, thrown into just about anything you can imagine, burned, shocked and half a dozen other things he can’t remember at the moment. He’s good with pain. He doesn’t like it, but he’s good with it and he knows how to make himself relax. It’s just really freaking hard when it’s Sam slowly working a finger into him with nothing but spit to make it easier.

“Jesus Christ, Sam,” he says, and realizes he’s panting for air he just can’t get.

Sam crooks his finger and Dean’s been checked for prostate cancer before, but that sucked out loud. This is fantastic. 

“You’ve never done this,” Sam says, wondering. “How is it you’ve never done this?”

Dean wants to say it’s because he’s not some pansy college-boy but really it’s more to do with eighty percent of his sex life involving the bathrooms of bars, the Impala and working around their Dad’s schedule. Not that he hasn’t had chicks suggest it, but the fact of it is, is he didn’t want something up his ass. He’s still not so sure he likes it.

“God,” Sam says and Dean feels ridiculous and queasy and achy but he’d do worse to hear Sam sound like that. He sinks his teeth into his forearm when Sam pushes his tongue in next to his finger and then, holy shit, if it hurts that much to have two of Sam’s fingers in his ass then there’s no way anything else is going in there. He can’t. He can’t. Dean bites down harder and thinks happy thoughts.

“Dean.” Sam’s hand rubs warm and soothing down Dean’s back and he curls back over Dean, still easing his middle finger deeper into him. “Hey, man, talk to me.”

Dean barks out a laugh. “You want to talk now?” He means it to sound a little sarcastic, a little incredulous, a lot casual, but it comes out tight and afraid. He isn’t hard any more and he kind of wants to cry and he doesn’t really know why. He’s screwing everything to hell, he knows that, but he’s not sure how to stop it.

“Yeah.” Sam does kiss Dean then, which should be way grosser than it actually is but Dean’s sweating and shaking and he feels like the biggest idiot on the planet and Sam’s not a half bad kisser. Sam crooks his fingers again and it stops sucking quite so hard. Not enough that Dean’s gung-ho to keep going, but enough that he doesn’t want to make “getting bullets dug out of me” noises. God, it’s embarrassing. Twinks up and down America do this all the time and Dean Winchester can’t take it. “Dean,” Sam says again.

“It’s okay,” Dean says. “It’s okay, Sammy.”

Sam clearly doesn’t believe him because he reaches under Dean and Dean makes a grab for Sam’s hand a second too late so Sam’s holding his flaccid cock and Dean’s holding onto Sam’s wrist and wondering how in hell his brother is balancing and pretty sure it has something to do with Sam’s ridiculous stomach. Sam makes a noise half irritated, half worried.

“You’re such a jerk,” Sam says, rubbing his thumb over the head of Dean’s dick.

*~*~*~*

If Sam didn’t have his hands quite literally full, he would consider punching his brother. Since that might be even stupider than trying to fuck him, Sam jerks Dean off instead, slowly moving his fingers. He can’t believe Dean’s never done this before. It’s kind of a turn on. Except, you know, for the part where Dean’s a fucking idiot.

Dean ran out of shampoo last week. Sam knows this because Dean’s been using his, which means that yesterday, Sam ran out too. So so much for lube. He’s pretty sure that if he went rooting around in the trunk of the car he could find something, but he’s also pretty sure that if he gets up, if he lets Dean get up, this is over. So either they don’t do this at all, or they do it really slowly and really carefully and if that’s not a metaphor for the whole stupid thing, then Sam doesn’t know what is.

Sam presses his fingers against Dean’s prostate and jacks his brother’s dick steadily. “I’m going to fuck you,” he says, trying to keep his voice even. It’s not easy when his cock is dragging heavy and wet over Dean’s thigh, but he thinks he does an okay job at it. Dean makes a choked noise and his head drops down, exposing the back of his neck. Sam licks up the sweat there and nips at the sensitive skin. “It’s probably going to hurt for a while,” he says “but it’ll work, you’ll like it, I promise.”

It shouldn’t hurt his feelings when Dean squeezes his eyes shut and starts trying to do the deep breathing that their father taught them to do when trying to manage pain. Or trying not to hurl. It does though.

“Okay,” Dean says.

Sam eases his fingers out of his brother and shoves him, pushing him onto his side. Hobbled by his boxers, Dean tips over, grunting in surprise. He gets up on one elbow, eyes wide. “Dude,” he says, kicking off his shorts, “what the hell?”

Sam puts a hand over the bite mark that Dean’s left on his own arm. “Yes or no,” he says. “Because this can’t be my fault and it certainly isn’t yours so either we go into this together, or we don’t do it.”

He can see Dean genuinely thinking about it. Sam can wait. He strokes the pale, pale skin of Dean’s hip, puts his mouth to it and sucks a bruise up to the surface. Dean’s breathing hitches, but he doesn’t say anything. Sam looks up at him, blinking hair out of his eyes and Dean looks sick and guilty and it’s going to take a long time to fix that, but Sam’s determined to have that time. 

He already knows Dean’s answer before Dean nods. Dean’s voice cracks on “Yes” but he says it.

It would be easier with Dean on his hands and his knees, but clearly that isn’t going to work. Sam thinks about Dean riding him, or Dean’s legs bent up over his shoulders, or spooned up on their sides, and Sam hesitates.

“Jesus, Sam,” Dean says, grabbing onto Sam’s hair and pulling him closer. “It’s ninety below, get your huge ass over here before my balls freeze off.” He’s almost hard against Sam’s stomach, and that’s something. Dean, who will stick by his decisions once he’s made them, will stick with Sam once he’s seen which way that goes, and damn everything else. Dean kisses him, rough and desperate. “On your back,” Dean says and kicks Sam’s knee out from under him and flips him when Sam doesn’t move fast enough. He pulls the sleeping bag up over their heads, dark and musty and warm. Sam can feel Dean’s breath on his stomach, suddenly blind, and then Dean’s hand, callused and cold curling around the base of his dick and then Dean’s mouth, hesitant and sloppy.

“Holy shit,” Sam breathes. He digs his fingers into the mattress because he thinks Dean might use his teeth if he tries to hold his head. Maybe Dean’s done this, maybe he hasn’t, but he flicks his tongue like a pro and it’s wet and his lips are chapped and soft and fucking made for this. 

Dean pulls off, wiping spit off his chin and blinks up at Sam in the dark. “That’ll help,” he says.

It won’t, not really. But Dean crawls up Sam’s body and Sam wants a room with central heating so he can spread Dean out on real sheets and lick every inch of his brother’s skin, smooth and scarred and beautiful, shifting over muscle and bone. Dean straddles Sam’s hips and if that’s the way things are going down, than Sam’s not going to complain.

“You gotta do it,” Dean says, rising up onto his knees, hands planted on Sam’s chest and they both hesitate when Sam’s dick presses against Dean.

“This is so fucked up, Sammy,” Dean says, then he’s pushing down and Sam is inside his brother, just a little.

“Shit,” Dean says. “Shit, hang on.” Every muscle in Dean’s body goes tight and Sam wishes he was less of a jerk because he might know what to say then. Dean abruptly relaxes, from his toes to the muscles in his neck and he sinks down onto Sam until his ass is resting against Sam’s thighs. 

“Oh my God,” Sam says, stroking his hands over Dean’s thighs. His brother is shaking and breathing in tight, controlled gasps but he opens his eyes and grins crookedly when Sam starts jerking him off again. Dean is so tight it almost hurts and Sam hasn’t fucked someone without a condom since Jess, and that was only a couple of times. He can’t believe Dean would give him this. Well, he kind of can, but it might be the best thing in the world and it’s Dean and it’s Sam and why weren’t they doing this before?

“I’m never giving you grief about the size of your dick again,” Dean says. “This is freaking ridiculous.” He shifts a bit, wincing. “Go slow,” he says, and Sam wouldn’t know that Dean was a little afraid except that it’s Dean and Sam can always tell with Dean.

Sam sits up and Dean grunts, grabbing awkwardly onto Sam’s shoulders. “We good?” Sam asks, and the position is going to make his legs fall asleep but if he leans back on one hand he can grind up into Dean, just a little bit.

Dean groans and mouths at Sam’s neck and jaw. “Quit being such a pussy and just do it already,” he says.

Sam gets his feet flat on the mattress; knees bent enough for a little leverage. He kisses Dean, mostly to shut him up. Dean’s still way too tight to do anything more but rock slowly into him, Dean trying to lift himself up higher on his knees, thighs shaking too badly to do it, the position still weird. Dean leans a little back, using his weight so Sam can hold onto him and won’t have to lean back on his arms to thrust up. It works, better anyway, and Dean makes a surprised noise and squirms on Sam. 

“Do that again,” he says, “harder.”

Sam is supremely unsurprised that Dean is a pushy bottom. Dean manages to get halfway to his knees so when Sam digs his heels into the mattress and shoves up, Dean grunts and his chewed down fingernails bite into Sam’s back. 

They find a kind of rhythm and it’s not easy and they’re both shaking with it, slippery with sweat and holding onto each other too hard, bruises and bite marks and bitten lips. Sam collapses backwards, unable to keep himself upright like that anymore and Dean slides off him, hissing and swearing and gets onto his elbows and knees, head down, thighs spread. This time it works, and it has to be hurting because it’s still kind of painful for Sam, a little too dry, a little too tight, but he guesses that Dean wouldn’t still be putting up with him if was still unbearable. He fucks into Dean, hard enough that Dean stops swearing and can’t do anything but breathe, panting under him, shoving back against him.

Dean puts his shoulder down on the mattress for balance and gets a hand under himself. He makes a sound like a sob and then he’s clenching around Sam, and Sam’s elbows lock which is the only thing that stops him from falling on top of Dean when he comes.


	6. Chapter 6

Three demons sit in a diner, cheap Formica table under their elbows. Andras eyes the demon across from him. “You look like an idiot,” he says.

The demon dressed like Santa’s little helper shrugs. “Ho, ho, ho,” she says. “Did what it was supposed to. You said the body had to evoke Christmas, Jessica, normal and all the shit he can’t really have. This is it.”

“Did it work?” Andras leans across the table, eager to see how his plan is opening up.

The demon dressed like an elf smiles. “He fucked his brother, what do you think?” 

Next to her, the demon with the great rack makes a face. Humans are so weird sometimes. “So Samuel Winchester got his rocks off, and Dean Winchester is still one of the most pathetic meat puppets on the planet,” she says. “What, exactly have we accomplished?”

“Think it through,” Andras says. “Sam will only make it to the end with Dean beside him, behind him, under him…Whatever. He’ll dig his heels in otherwise and look how far we’ve pushed him, what he’s done already to save his brother and himself. A few more solid pushes and Sam will be right where we want him.”

“But Dean’s the one-” the demon with the great rack says.

“Holding Sam back?” Andras asks. “Of course. But now you’ve got an in with him, you can work on him while I work on Sam. Dean can’t ‘save’ Sam if he’s too turned around to see anything but his brother. Dean’s a good soldier. He’ll get in line.”

*~*~*~*

Sam isn’t sure he’s done the right thing. Dean is still panting and shaking and Sam thinks he might have really fucked things up this time.

Dean rolls onto his back, tugging the sleeping bag higher over his body. “Holy shit,” he says and his voice is cracked in the middle. Sam opens his mouth to apologize and knows there’s nothing he can possibly say to make things right again. “Now I know why Jessica was doing you, you big stud,” Dean continues.

Sam feels sick with relief. He relaxes and thinks with a part of his brain that makes his back itch and the presents come winging across the room. He catches one of them, the other hits him in the head. Dean looks up at the sound and Sam watches him understand, watches him examine the idea, turn it over, consider the angles.

“You sure about this?” Dean says, hesitantly, accepting his gift from Sam and Sam nods.

*~*~*~*

Dean knows their dad would be ashamed of them, knows that John would say that this wasn’t why he saved Dean, not so he could screw up so badly. But Sammy is grinning, and Dean can feel the same stupid expression creeping onto his face. They’ve done this to each other, they’re in it together, down to the last of Dean’s days. He sits up properly, ignoring the ache in his ass and the freezing cold, and kisses Sammy.

“Just don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?” Dean asks, and if it sounds a little pleading, well, he’s got the stubble burn on the inside of his thighs that means he gets to be a little wussy for maybe five minutes.

Sam laughs, the freak, and Dean’s not sure why. Probably because it is a huge deal and Dean saw demons last night and now he wonders if maybe Sam did too, God damn them. 

“We need lube,” Sam says and Dean startles. “It’s true. And shampoo, you jerk.” Sam slings one long arm over Dean’s shoulders and it could be for warmth, Sam’s huge, strongly delicate hand resting over Dean’s heart. 

*~*~*~*

**Then, May 2008: +1**

Dean is standing by the window. He has to be cold, he’s only in his boxers, pulled on over skin tacky with sweat and mud from their latest hunt, and the AC is on too high. Sam doesn’t know if he feels cold like normal, like he would if Berith wasn’t there with him, like he doesn’t feel his broken body.

He turns when he hears Sam move in the bed. “Tick, tock, dude, it’s a new day,” Dean says with the biggest grin that Sam has seen on his brother in years and climbs onto Sam’s bed.

Sam desperately needs to touch his brother to make sure he’s real. Sam doesn’t want to touch Dean, even though Dean’s fine for now. He brushes a finger over his brother’s (shattered) cheekbone. “I told you,” Sam says, going for smug and winding up somewhere around desperate. He fits his hands over Dean’s (cracked) ribs and smoothes them down over his (broken) back.

Dean punches Sam in the shoulder. Hard. “Stop being such a pussy,” he says. “We’ll figure something out.”

Sam’s brain is liable to turn cities to ash. Dean’s body is held together by a demon. Sam sighs; they need to talk about it, they’ll have to talk about it sooner or later. They’ll get around to it eventually.

*~*~*~*

**Bolton, North Carolina – December 28 2008**

It’s not that Henriksen catches up to the Winchesters, but that they catch up to him, doubling back to the Podunk, assfuck, nowheresville he’d tracked them to a week ago. There were less than five hundred people in the town before the Winchesters showed up now, suddenly, there’s twice as many, an army, and Henriksen is standing, unarmed, in a room with Dean and Samuel Winchester.

Dean moves like a jumpy cat, prowling around the room, casing the joint, while Sam keeps an eye, and a weapon, trained on Henriksen.

“We finally meet,” Sam says, and Christ if he isn’t bigger in person than in the photos. Dean, apparently content with the state of the room circles back to stand on Sam’s right. He smirks at Henriksen and Henriksen is good, he’s very, very good, but Dean Winchester is utterly insane and his brother is cold and if he lets Dean off the leash, Henriksen doesn’t want to know how many pieces they’ll find his body in.

“It’s nice to see you boys,” Henriksen says. There’s one clear exit and the Winchesters are blocking it and it seems very likely that the windows are too solid to get out if Dean didn’t bother guarding them. Maybe, maybe if he’s smart he might walk out of this. 

Sam puts the gun away and smiles at Henriksen. “You’ve probably got a lot of questions.” He sits down on the bed, empty-handed and glances up at Dean who shakes his head subtlety. Sam’s eyebrow quirks and Dean’s lip curls up in a half smile. Henriksen has no idea what they just said.

Henriksen shifts his weight just to watch Dean’s reaction which is to tense, ever so slightly. “So,” he says as casually as he can. “What sort of whackos are you?”

“Rogue demon hunters,” Dean says, grinning and Sam makes a face. Dean, prone to quoting, and Henriksen thinks that might have been one. “There’s no sense in explaining,” Dean says to Sam.

Sam sighs. “You’re probably right.” 

“There’s going to be a lot going on, in the next few months,” Dean says. “And with all that crap flying around, we just can’t deal with you too. So…I’m sorry, man. But, for now, this is how it goes.”

Sam gets up again and Dean immediately moves a little between his brother and Henriksen. Henriksen wonders if he could get to his gun in time because of all the ways he doesn’t want to die, being one Dean Winchester’s victim is pretty high on the list. Then Dean puts a hand on Sam’s arm and Sam nods shortly. The lights in the room flicker and dim and black smoke pours in through the door. Sam’s eyes are golden and he holds onto Dean like it means something more than just physical support.

Henriksen has one short moment to be horribly confused before the smoke is pouring down his throat and he’s staring out of his eyes, but utterly unable to move at all.

“Hello Victor,” a voice in his head says and then Henriksen is saying, “Samuel Winchester, playing the part at last are we?” even though he didn’t actually say it himself.

Dean leans up to whisper something to his brother and Sam nods wearily. “Orobas, you will join the ranks, I presume. Fall in line behind me and my brother?”

Henriksen’s eyes focus on Dean and he can feel his lip curling. “A broken-bodied meat-puppet?” he hears his voice saying.

“My elder brother,” Sam snaps and Dean laughs, a little bitterly, but he laughs. 

“That’s right, bitch,” Dean says and one of Sam’s enormous hands is on the back of Dean’s neck, thumb stroking along the skin there. Henriksen looked it up, wondering if it wasn’t the case and he still remembers the vague research he did on sibling incest. A lot of good it does him now that he can’t move his arms or legs or eyes. Dean pulls out an antique gun and cocks it. 

“Fall in line,” Dean says and a voice inside Henriksen’s head sighs and Henriksen goes to one knee. 

Sam waves a hand. “All right,” he says and Henriksen, Orobas, gets up again. “Gimme the keys,” he says to Dean.

Dean puts the gun back into his holster and surreptitiously gropes his little brother’s ass, just to make him jump. “Yeah right, Sammy,” he says.

Henriksen gets into the Impala with the Winchesters and watches them bicker all the way back to the motel they’re holed up in and he realizes, he knows nothing about them at all.

 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before 03x08 I had 13,151 words of fic and then 03x08 Jossed me something rotten since my fic was set when the episode was set but was not, in fact, the episode. I had thought the writer’s strike would keep me safe. Words cannot describe my ire. I was going to just say, Hell with it, and keep going, and say that the fic deviates into AU from ep08 but that would ruin the whole freaking point of my story. Also, the idea of just giving up like that infuriated and annoyed me. So I took a fanfic I’d started but never finished and made this, since I can’t write Supernatural without slapping my own “This is how the season should go” canon on it, and I don’t know why. It’s a sickness. I hope you like it, because, for all my bitching, I had a wonderful time writing this monstrosity. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also of note: I accidentally mistyped a line when I was drafting this so it read: “[Dean] jolts out from under the cover of the sleeping bag, holding his life out, like that’s going to make a lick of difference.” I almost wanted to leave it as it was because it feels like a Freudian slip. (in case you can’t remember, the word was supposed to be ‘knife’ not ‘life.’) But talk about meta, right?
> 
> Andras is a demon named in the song Symphony for the Devil, a song by PIG. PIG is the other band of one of the band members of KMFDM. It is also listed as being part of the Christian mythology, as are all the others.
> 
> “Fear the priest, Merrin, Merrin” and Pazuzu are from _the Exorcist_.
> 
> Songs listened to within the story:  
> Tom Cochran [Life is a highway](http://www.lyrics007.com/Tom%20Cochrane%20Lyrics/Life%20Is%20A%20Highway%20Lyrics.html)  
> Metallica [Stone Cold Crazy](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/m/metallica/stone+cold+crazy_20092055.html)  
> Alice In Chains [ Man in the Box](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/alice+in+chains/man+in+the+box_20005883.html)


End file.
